Repost Author Note
I removed this story from fanficiton dot net once, and I had several reasons for doing so. I got deeper into the cannon and realized I made a bunch of mistakes. I came to really hate one of the characters I made up and couldn't face writing him anymore. I began to feel like no one was reading it. But mostly, I realized one day that I was writing a major science-fiction/fantasy blend into an imported European action cartoon whose main fan base was young girls. That realization came to me one day, and I suddenly became very embarrassed. I removed the story shortly thereafter.
Someone messaged me recently and asked me to re-post this story, at least those parts I had written, even if I didn't intend to work on it anymore. It was not the first such request I had gotten, but it was the most articulate and thoughtful, and it came at a good time for me. It got me to remembering how much I enjoyed this story, and before I knew it, I was working on it again.
Here it is. I completely re-wrote about 30 percent of the original content, removing systematic errors and replacing huge blocks of writing that even I found to unbearably boring to read. I updated the whole story in line with the improvements in my writing style in the years since I started it. And finally, I produced two (TWO) completely new chapters. The end result is a product I no longer find particularly embarrassing.
I don't know when I'll get around to writing more. I've got a solid plan for at least another two chapters, but I'm working on about three other projects right now. By and large, this is only an archiving of this work so other people can hopefully enjoy it as much as I have. There was a time when I would have parceled the chapters out over the course of months to maximize its exposure. I think we're all glad that time is behind me. Please enjoy.
Original Chapter 1 Author Note
Mildly mature themes abound in this one, so consider yourself warned. I have no pairings I prefer, so I'll start with the ones from the show and then flip a coin or three to see where things go. The story is based after the second season, diverging during the summer break before the very end of Z is for Zenith. As a quick note for this chapter—while I tried to get the general construction of their houses right, I basically made up all kinds of details, especially for Taranee's house. Forgive the improvisation
I claim no ownership of W.I.T.C.H. and acknowledge the rightful copyright holders, both foreign and domestic. I'm not trying to sell this, and have nothing to do with anyone who does.
Dragon Sisters
Chapter 1: Rude Awakening
At a Pleasant, Ritzy Restaurant
Will shook her head, shrugging off the muzzy feeling that had been bothering her all night and concentrating on what mattered—the fact that Matt was sitting right across their little booth table from her, and was giving her a look that made her heart thunder in her chest. The fuzz in her head was nothing compared to the blush she couldn't keep off her face and the wonderful heartache that was making her breath come just a little shorter than normal.
This date was by far the fanciest she'd ever been on, and each of them wore outfits for the occasion and to pass this swanky restaurant's dress code. She'd chosen a green strapless dress with a ruffled skirt that came to her knees, and by the way Matt's eyes traveled guiltily downward every now and then, she knew she was wearing it better than she'd feared. He was wearing a handsome suit that framed his square shoulders and a blue silk shirt that clung to his chest in a most eye-catching manner. The two of them sat in silence for a while, more out of natural teenage awkwardness than nerves or embarrassment. Finally, Will gathered her thoughts, intent on expressing what she'd felt for so long now, in this seemingly magical moment.
"Matt," She said, almost loosing her train of thought when she noticed his eyes snapping up from her immature cleavage, "I just wanted to tell you, thank you." He seemed confused, but she overrode any question he might have spoken. "You stuck with me, even with all this magical stuff with other worlds started happening, even to the point of getting drawn in yourself as a Reagent of Earth. You've always been there to help me, and I can't tell you how much that means to me. I guess what I'm trying to say is that," Will moved her hands toward his over the table, "I think… I mean I L—"
The moment their hands touched, there was an electric shock between them that stung his hand and forced him to jerk away reflexively. It was utterly unexpected, and so powerful that Will had actually seen the lick of blue lightning hop from her hand to his. Of course, she hadn't felt anything—natural electricity hadn't bothered her since the veil came down.
"Oh my God, Matt, I'm sorry—I didn't mean—" Will began to apologize, but stopped with a tiny shriek when her silverware hopped of the table and latched onto her dress like a magnet picking up a paperclip. "Uh… what the heck?"
Will's confusion turned to panic as she suddenly picked up Matt's silverware too, and tables all around the restaurant began to wobble and shake as every metal item, from plates to silverware to napkin-rings, all began to clatter to the floor and make their way irresistibly toward her.
As her panic rose, she felt a static charge build up on her body like she'd just been rubbing wool socks on a plush carpet, only a thousand times stronger. Her hair, painstakingly flattened with styling gel for the date, took on a life of its own and stood up off her head, making her look disturbingly like a red dandelion. Every eye in the restaurant was on her, and she was crippled with sudden embarrassment, sinking down to hide low in the booth. The charge on her body seemed to be ramping up with every moment, increasing in scale with her embarrassment and then far beyond that.
Matt, recovering from his shock, rushed around the table to help usher her out of the restaurant with as little incident as possible. He reached down to pull her up by her bare shoulders, and Will realized the danger and screamed for him to stop an instant too late.
Matt grabbed Will's shoulders and was instantly jolted by more electricity than any living creature could possibly stand. He flashed with the burning light of it as it ran through his hands, over his shoulders, and directly through his chest and heart. When her panic-fueled strength finally overcame the way the electricity made his hand muscles clench at her body, Matt fell to the floor like a wooden dummy. His hair was on end and his eyes had rolled back in his head, he was smoking slowly where his body hair had been incinerated, and he wasn't moving, not even with an electric tic.
Will drew a breath to scream, but had no voice. She clawed at her throat, but her hands felt strange. She looked at them, only to find that where her body should have been was nothing but a bundle of standing lightning shaped into the vaguest of human forms. She again tried to scream, but this body had no lungs, no throat, and only a basic depression to imitate a mouth. Instead she began to emit rings of brilliant light, leaping auroras of standing electricity that spread out and blew away lighting fixtures, exploded every electrical device in the room, and wracked the fleeing bystanders with murderous force. The scream became a self-perpetuating eternity, this nightmare hell consuming her sanity.
At the Vandom Residence
"Will! Will! Please baby, wake up!" Will's mother grabbed her thrashing daughter, trying to hold her still as she writhed on her bed, apparently in agony. The girl screamed again and again, long, drawn-out, blood-curdling things that would certainly wake the neighbors soon as the very first one had woken her.
She was far past being afraid now, and was about to resort to desperate measures when Will suddenly stopped cold, going stiff and arching her back, even under all the weight of her mother's restraining attempts. Suddenly, every light in the room popped in a rain of broken glass, and there was a terrible tingling sensation, a sense as though her ears had popped, and then a symphony of noise from outside.
The light outside the window went out an instant after the room's lights exploded, and soon the night was pitch black besides the glow of the moon and stars, a blackout blanketing the city. Susan Vandom knelt over her daughter, and was not sure whether to hug her close and guard her or back away slowly. Then the decision was made for her, as she heard her little girl crying uncontrollably, and she embraced her in the basest of motherly instincts.
Will was awake again now, her eyes riveted open like someone who'd just stared into a black pit and never wanted it to be dark again. She was crying freely, and she clung on to her mother for dear life out of reflex, all the strife between them forgotten as she recoiled from the horror she'd just experienced. The dream had been real, far too real, and all the death had been graphic beyond anything the movies or books could prepare a person for. Her transformation had been real too, and this time she'd been aware as she lost herself to the seductive delight of pure elemental existence. She'd experienced every moment of her mind and personality dissolving, and it had shaken her to the depths of her being.
"Mommy?" Will begged for some anchorage in a world gone mad, too terrified to be grown-up and desperate for reassurance as she wept. Suddenly, she was a little girl again, a child who was afraid of the dark and the monsters that lurked behind every corner.
"Don't worry baby, mommy's here," her mother said, understanding just how bad things were if her little tomboy was left this vulnerable. She hadn't been called 'mommy' since the divorce. "It… it was just a blackout… a power-surge," she lied, riddled with uncertainty as to just what she'd witnessed moments ago, "the power should be back on by morning, honey. Just try to get back to sleep and—"
"NO!" Will shrieked, the instant she felt her mom try to pull away. She was still in a very bad place, and even a hint of abandonment was more than she could handle. "Please… please just stay…"
"Of-of course," Susan held her child close and began to hum a little lullaby she'd used once upon a time to put baby Wilma down for the night. She'd be lying if she said she didn't enjoy a chance to be there for her little girl again, especially after all the estrangement that was just getting started as she entered her adolescence. At the same time, she couldn't ignore the fact that the infant whose diapers she'd changed had just somehow caused a city-wide blackout. Even now she could hear sirens from emergency vehicles tearing around outside.
Will was slowly coming back to her senses, with her mom there to keep her anchored, and as her heart slowed down to something like a normal pulse rate, she began to realize how embarrassingly childish she was being. Then there was something like a blood-curdling scream on the inside of her head, in Taranee's voice no less, and the greater implications of what she'd just gone through hit her like a brick to the forehead.
"Oh NO!" She shrieked, forgetting she was so close to her mother, who was shocked back off of her. Will stood up so fast that she tripped and landed on her face, then stood up again and brushed past her mom.
"Will, what in the world?" Susan was torn between confusion and a familiar reflex toward anger at the way her daughter refused to be predictable or explain her mysterious habits. The rebellion she could forgive as natural, but she was certain she'd never been this inscrutable as a teenager.
"I-uh-I'm worried about my friends in this blackout!" Will scrambled for some half-believable pretence to get her out the door. Freaking out on her mom was not the best way to get permission to go out into a dark and lawless night, but she couldn't take back the past, and that telepathic scream had been as deeply terrified as any she'd made earlier. What if Taranee's powers had freaked out too? The sound of fire trucks in the distance was suddenly all too ominous.
"Will, I'm certain they'll all be fine," Susan tried to be reasonable, wary of how useless that had proven in the past, "meanwhile, I'm not letting you go out when the city is like this! There could be looters and vandals on the loose, with a blackout this big. It's not safe, and you're not going!"
"Honestly mom, and I mean this in the most respectful way possible—you can't stop me. I feel like I really need to check on my friends! I have… a terrible feeling." It wasn't quite a lie, and that tended to make for greater believability. "I'm going, whether I go out the front door or the window is entirely up to you, mom."
"Will!" Susan couldn't help but shriek in her frustration, but then she muscled the punishing instinct under control. Her daughter was easily as stubborn as she was, and was right about not being able to control her. Unless she was willing to wrestle her down and sit on her the whole night, she couldn't keep the girl here. "You will be the death of me," Susan grumbled, and then sighed "but that's true of any teenager. Let me get dressed, and I'll drive you to your friends' houses."
"But—" Will began, and was silenced with an atomic stink-eye from her mother.
"That's the final word, young woman!" Susan put her foot down. It was hardly ideal for Will, but then, time was slipping away as they stood here arguing, and a car would be much faster than running there. "Now you had better get dressed too, I doubt you want to go cavorting around the city in your jammies, honey."
That was enough to distract Will from another attempt to argue. She was wearing nothing but a pair of old terrycloth shorts and a tank top. By the time she'd changed into the first clothes that came to hand—a pair of hip-hugger jeans and a magenta spaghetti-strap top, her mom was also ready, and they were out the door.
A tense silence hung between them as they navigated by a flashlight. The heavy-duty, military-surplus tool was the only thing that had survived an electro-magnetic blast which had knocked out their cell phones and every other electric device in the apartment, and probably the whole city. The electronics in her mom's car had also survived, likely shielded by the metal shell, and they were on their way in no time.
At the Cook Residence
Despite the moderate destruction that had come with the blackout, this ungodly hour meant that few people were up and around. That made driving a little bit easier, even without working traffic lights, and they pulled into the somewhat upper-scale neighborhood where Taranee lived in short order. The moment they turned the corner, they saw the smoke and the light and Will's heart froze in her chest, her mother whispering a prayer.
"Not Taranee's house, not T, not her, please," Will chanted, holding out hope until they were close enough to tell exactly which house was blazing in the darkness. Her world seemed to deflate as the fear seized at her, because there could be no mistaking it.
Their car pulled up to the curb, but none of the dozens of people gathered out front in various states of undress took any notice. All these men and women in their boxers and bathrobes were looking hopelessly at the blazing house and gathering in silent empathy around the middle-aged Asian woman and her dark, handsome husband. He was morose, and held her closely as she wailed with unreserved despair.
"My BABY!" she wept, moaning into her husband's red smoking jacket as she stood in her robe. "Oh, God no! Not my little girl!"
"I'm going in there!" Will heard a young man shout brazenly as she and her mother got out of the car, his own voice only just skirting a break into despair. "The fire department will never get here in time, not with the blackout! Someone has to do something!"
"Peter… please… don't delude yourself," Taranee's father cautioned him, "the fire started in her room. It's a flash-blaze, it'll have consumed the entire house within the hour. There's just… no chance…" His wife's renewed sobbing told the rest of the story for him, and he went back to comforting her as he watched his son struggle with the same sense of unbearable impotence he felt turning his heart to the same ash as his home.
"Taranee!" Will shouted, running toward the house before her mom could catch her. She got within ten feet, and then the unbearable heat radiating out from the fire pushed her back, nearly searing her skin. She was crying again before she even realized it, and would quickly have given into despair if it hadn't been for the sudden whispering in her mind.
"Someone… help…?" the thought-words were uneven and weak, but Will knew she wasn't imagining them, and she stood up with eyes widened. Taranee was somehow still alive in that blaze, and that meant she had to do something! If her powers were freaking out the same way Will's had, she might not be able to control the fire well enough to escape, or she could be trapped under debris, or—oh, she'd never quite gotten over her phobia of fire, had she?
"Irma… I need to get Irma!" Will had one of those instinctual moments that helped her lead the guardians in battle, although this one didn't take magical powers to conclude. She turned and rushed back over to her mom. "We've got to go to Irma's place now!" Will commanded without explanation, and her mom was left speechless as she glanced from the fire, to her daughter, and back again. "NOW mom! We need Irma as soon as—"
The sudden arrival of three fire trucks, two police cruisers, and an ambulance completely overrode Will's attempt to get through to her somewhat shell-shocked mom. Most of the crowd cheered to see them there, everyone assuming someone else had contacted them. But with the phone lines down, how had anyone managed to?
That mystery lasted until Will saw Irma and her dad hop out of one of the police cruisers. Will called out to her friend, wondering if she'd ever been so relieved and surprised in her entire life, and around them, the fire fighters sprang into action.
"How—Why—thank God you're here!" Will finally managed, as she and her friend leapt into an impromptu hug. The brunette was looking haggard; her hair was damp and her jeans were soaked to the knees, her green t-shirt wrinkled like it had been wrung out recently.
"Hey, it's great when people are happy to see you," Irma joked, "but I figure I'm here for the same reason you are." She tapped the side of her head, cautious of being overheard, and then continued in a whisper. "Let me tell you, it was no small task to get my old man on his radio to call help over here—I had to use mind-mojo left and right. We had problems enough at my place."
"Did your powers freak out too?" Will asked in an urgent whisper, eager beyond description to compare notes with someone. "I think I might have caused this blackout—in my sleep!"
"Oh, that's nothing," Irma continued to fight fear with levity, "you can just rename my whole neighborhood, 'Heatherfield Wading Pond.' I woke up out of this insane nightmare and thought I'd wet the bed. Turns out, I burst a few water pipes and wet every bed in a two-block radius… and every carpet, and every basement—the list goes on."
"Complain when your house burns down," Will half-joked back, but it brought both girls to the situation again. "I know she's alive in there, and I don't think the fire can hurt her, but that won't help her if the house falls in on her. And why haven't they started with the hoses yet?"
"Together, you and I took out the electric water pumps and broke the pipes that carry it all," Irma reminded her, totally serious now. "There's not much they can do."
"I guess that means its up to us, then," Will concluded, resolved.
"Right, let's get out of sight so you can guardian-ize us." Irma was pointing to some nearby bushes, and Will followed her over there. Will withdrew the Heart of Candracar from her pocket and it began to float in anticipation of her commands.
"Guardians Un—" Will stopped, choking on the words. She'd just felt a chill like the icy grip of death pass down her spine, and it must have shown on her face.
"What's the matter now?" Irma asked.
"I-I don't know… but I think going guardian would be a bad idea right now." Will had no idea where the sensation came from, but she'd learned not to second-guess her instincts.
"Helloo?" Irma drawled, skeptical, "Friend in mortal danger? That ringing any bells? We don't have a choice!"
"NO!" Will settled the issue, thrusting the Heart back into her pocket, "I'm not going to risk our powers self-destructing until we know more about what happened tonight. We'll just have to use what powers we have without the Heart. Come on!"
"Can you get us in?" Will asked, when they found themselves in the shadows, hidden around the far side of the house under Taranee's window. "We need something to block out the heat."
"Oh, I think I have an idea," Irma assured her, "It's just—this'll be a lot harder without guardian powers."
Concentrating, Irma held both hands out at a random patch of lawn. In seconds, there was rumbling, and with a sudden cracking noise, a geyser of water shot out of the ground at an angle and blasted into the burning house. A gout of steam blasted back out for the trouble, but it quelled the worst of the fire around this side of the building.
"Uh, wow," Will said, impressed, "You've been taking your magic vitamins, I see." Irma didn't answer, she was staring at her own hands like she'd just noticed that they belonged to someone else. She snapped out of it before Will could interrogate her, and waved at the damp ground until she'd gathered up a great bubble of water, levitating it into the air behind her.
"Let's go get our friend," was all she said, even as she continued to demonstrate uncommon power. Will was suspicious, but didn't have the time to explore the issue, not with Taranee still trapped.
The inside of the house was a charred mess, and Irma had to put out spot fires here and there as they went, the both of them living in constant fear of the floor giving away underneath them. Still, following the Heart of Candracar led them right to Taranee, who'd burned through her room's floor, then through the floor of the living room below, and now sat on the stone floor of the basement. When the two girls saw their friend, they were immediately terrified for her.
She was naked, curled up in a fetal ball in the center of a calm circle where no fire touched. The spot where she was sitting on the solid concrete floor was glowing white-hot, clearly threatening to melt, and had already cracked terribly. Her legs pulled up against her chest protected what was left of her modesty, but she looked catatonic, and didn't respond to their shouts at all. She was still generating heat, an unbelievable amount, and even on the other side of the basement, it was like standing in front of an open blast-furnace door. Only a veil of water held between them let them get this close, and that was quickly boiling away.
"We have to get her to calm down, to stop burning up so we can get her out of here!" Irma shouted over the astounding roar of the fire.
"I have an idea!" Will shouted, and described it in quick detail as they huddled in the sturdy doorway. In moments, the both of them were concentrating with all their might, trying to get through to her mind where their voices had failed to reach her ears. It didn't seem to work at first, but then, with a sudden hiss, the heat reduced considerably and Taranee perked out of her catatonia.
"Will? Irma?" her mental voice sounded exhausted, but otherwise unharmed considering the circumstances. "Where are you?"
"Were right over here in the doorway," the two thought in unison to reinforce the message. "Can't you see?"
"My glasses melted… along with my… with my clothes," she noticed just how naked she was and tried much more actively to cover herself, even as she stared around blindly. "I was concentrating—trying to use the heat as a shield against debris… but I think I must have lost myself or..."
"Over here!" Will shouted, cutting her off and giving her an audible clue as to what direction to face. "Leave the explanations for later and let's get out of here!"
Taranee followed the sound of her voice and faced the doorway, starting to crawl that direction through a gauntlet of flames. A normal person would have been cooked alive by getting that close to blazing fire, but the flames themselves bowed away from the superior heat radiating from Taranee. Will and Irma screamed as the veil of water practically exploded into steam, and the sound made Taranee stop in her tracks.
"What's wrong, guys, please, talk to me!" she shouted, worried, but unable to see what was going on.
"You're too hot!" Irma shouted, "We're learning what baked cookies feel like!"
"You've got to stop it with the heat, Taranee, or we're not going to make it!" Will uncovered her face and peeked out, her eyes stung badly by the wash of dry furnace-air that immediately bathed her face. "Can't you put the fire out?"
"I tried—I tried!" she said, and sobbed. Any tears evaporated before they got off of her eyes. "When I woke up in the fire, I panicked, and it got worse. When I tried to stop it, it got worse! I don't know what's wrong!" and her wail was so hopeless that Will was certain that they'd lose her again.
"Just calm down Taranee," Will cautioned her, barely able to keep her words even with the way her skin was trying to evaporate off her bones, "if you can just stop your own heat, we can get you out of here."
"But if I cool off—the fire—"
"You have to trust us! We won't let you down!"
"I…" Taranee hesitated, "I trust you." It sounded like she was talking more to herself than to them. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Immediately, it was like the difference between the beach at noon and the beach at night, all the remaining flames far enough away to pale in comparison to the scorching heat that had just faded away. As she'd warned, those other flames moved in to blaze where the convection of Taranee's heat was no longer pushing it away. Two walls of fire slapped in at her like the jaws of molten beast, and Irma stepped up.
"Water," She said resolutely, a jet of it lashing from her palms to sweep back the flames. Another cloud of steam and smoke bloomed from the contact, making the crumbling basement a sauna. The water blast weakened the far wall, and a ceiling beam that had been half-eaten by fire cracked and fell without warning.
"Quintesence!" Will snapped quickly, and a lightning bolt jumped from her hand. It was the first time she'd used her power since the nightmare, and the force of it was several times what she'd expected. It struck the beam and incinerated it to ash, the iridescent heat of it causing an actual thunderclap. The whole house shook precariously, and the noise made their ears ring.
"What was that?" a distant voice shouted from upstairs.
"I don't know, it came from the basement—let's go!"
"Irma, take care of them," Will ordered, as she rushed in to get Taranee and guide her through the rubble. She reached down to help her friend up, mindful of how embarrassing this situation was for her, but had to pull away in shock immediately. Despite the reduction, her skin was still as hot as an oven's insides, and had nearly seared some skin off Will's hand. "Holy crap, Taranee, you're still too hot to touch! What does that feel like?"
"What are you talking about—I'm as cool as I can manage—"
"Who's down here?" an anonymous male voice asked in the background. "We're here to help!"
"You didn't see anyone," Irma said, waving her hands and speaking mysteriously, all quite a bit more theatrics than the situation warranted.
"I… didn't… see… anyone," the firefighter repeated.
"You're going to leave your fire-blanket here," Irma told him, "you used it to fight the fire. Now get going."
Will waited in this space of calm for Irma to show up, and the two of them wrapped Taranee in the thick fire blanket and led her out of the basement. They retraced their steps back up the way they had come, the ruined wood creaking dangerously under their feet, and then snuck out of the back door again. They spent a whispering moment organizing their story, and Irma primed her power, and then they made their stumbling way around the building.
"Hey everybody, lookie what we found unconscious out back!" Irma shouted gleefully. She and Will flanked their friend close on either side, enduring the last bit of intense heat coming off of her with the help of the blanket. This meant they were positioned to ward people off when the inevitable rush of onlookers came in with all their astonished happiness.
"Taranee!" the girl's mother bowled over a whole crowd of rubberneckers, scattering them like she was a linebacker four times her size, and dashed in to sweep her daughter into a hug. By dint of extreme concentration, Irma managed to keep her from noticing how hot Taranee was, and staved off kisses that would result in fried lips. "Oh, thank God! Thank God!" her mother moaned as she tried to suffocate Taranee in her hug. She stopped suddenly as her husband and son came over, her expression turning to one of fury, tears running down her face. "Don't you ever scare me like that again!" she shouted, shaking her gently.
"Oh, my little girl," Taranee's father gave her a similar hug, Irma expanding her efforts to him and keeping their little secrets safe. "I thought we'd lost you."
"Oh, come on Mom, Dad," Taranee complained, "not in front of my friends." Under extremely different circumstances, the situation would have been delightful. She couldn't remember the last time her parents had been this openly affectionate. Her brother just looked happy, and gave them all thumbs up as he collapsed onto the lawn from the stress he'd put himself through.
A storm of questions were forthcoming, and the girls threaded the gauntlet with a combination of bluffing, omission, and outright lies. With serious help from Irma's overworked power of suggestion, everyone eventually bought the story that Taranee had pulled off her burning nightclothes and escaped through a window in the fire blanket that she, being a paranoid young woman, kept under her bed. Her friends had found her blind and nearly naked out back, and here they were. Mr. Cook nearly ruined everything by being a shrewd and inquisitive fellow, but Irma befuddled him after the third probing question and Will introduced her mom as a distraction.
The night wore on at a lightning pace as Will began to plan out the rest of their task. As Taranee eventually cooled within the temperature of tongue-searing hot chocolate, she was able to borrow some clothes from her neighbor without worrying about setting them on fire, although she was still practically blind. Her head was too muddled to send thoughts to Cornelia or Hay Lin just then, so Will turned to the task of connecting their parents and, with Irma's help, manipulating them.
"…and this is Officer Lair, Irma's dad," Will said, completing the triangle. Her mom, Mrs. Cook, and the big police officer greeted one another. "Some kind of crazy night we've been having, huh? Anyway, I'm still worried about Cornelia and Hay Lin, so mom…"
"Yes, of course Will," Will's mom nodded and got out her keys, arousing immediate curiosity from the others.
"You've been checking on your daughter's friends?" Mr. Lair asked, intrigued. "Because Irma convinced me to do the same thing. If you want, I could give you a police escort. I need to complete a sweep of the city anyway and report back to the precinct HQ. With the phones out, reports on cruiser radios are the only way to know where we're needed."
"If you're all going to be together," Mrs. Cook cut in, prompted by Irma's powers, "could you take Taranee with you? I know she'd be much more comfortable with her friends than staying at our neighbor's house for the night. She said she wouldn't be able to sleep without knowing her friends were safe, and I know I'd feel better if she went with a police officer to check on them."
"Sure, that would be fine," Will's mom agreed, "she can sleep over at our place tonight and we'll all meet up again tomorrow."
"You know, our house was flooded when those pipes burst," Mr. Lair added, "Do you think Irma could stay at your house? My wife and son have already taken up the only sleeping bags, and I know Irma would sooner eat a frog than share a bag with her little brother."
"Uh, yeah, I guess that would be fine. We've got… some room," Susan Vandom shook her head, almost noticing some of Irma's influence as the girl began to tire. Her work was becoming sloppy after so much strain. "Come on, we'd better go if we hope to get any sleep tonight. Mr. Hale's apartment is halfway across town."
In Susan Vandom's Car
In the car, Will had one window seat and Irma had the other, the better to keep an eye on Taranee between them. Every now and then she would nod off, too tired to keep her eyes open, even with the dire circumstances. Every time she fell asleep, she started to heat up like an electric lighter, and had to be poked and cajoled awake. Irma used her power to wet her hands and the water sizzled from her fingers as she did her part. Will just used a low-yield electric shock and avoided the situation entirely. With Irma's help, Will's mom was kept in the dark.
"Taranee, you've got to get your power under control!" Will whispered urgently. "We'll never keep it quiet if you burn a scorch mark into the upholstery or vaporize your clothes again!"
"Easy for you to say…" Taranee mumbled, her eyes developing deep bags as she yawned, actually exhaling a tiny lick of flame. "God, I… I burned down my house… all my possessions… everything my family owns… and all of that hasn't even really sunk in for me yet! I just want to wake up and find out this was all another nightmare."
"You had a nightmare, too?" Will and Irma asked at the same time. They looked at one another, realizing that they'd glossed over this earlier when Taranee's plight had distracted them.
"Just before I burst the pipes," Irma beat Will to her explanation, "I dreamed that I was swimming at the beech with my family and all of W.I.T.C.H.. I dove down, and when I came up, the water followed me before I realized it. The tidal wave swept everyone away, destroying the city. I could see everyone's bodies… and I wanted to scream, but I'd become elemental me again, like when we fought Super-Cedric. I could feel my mind wasting away, and I was just screaming and screaming, and I woke up to find water shooting into the house from every pipe in the building. It took a while to figure out I'd somehow done the same thing all over the place."
"Oh man," there was a moment's silence as the two girls considered how harrowingly familiar that dream sounded.
"I had the same dream, except I electrocuted Matt and then a bunch of bystanders," Will admitted quickly, leaving out details where details weren't needed.
"Ditto for me," Taranee said, eyes widened by the disturbing memories, "but I burned so hot that I lit the sky on fire and initiated nuclear Armageddon."
The other two girls stared at their friend like she was a bomb that might explode at any second. They each edged away from her slightly, and not because of the heat.
"Oh come on you two, I read a lot of sci-fi, okay?" Taranee looked hurt by their mistrust, even as she realized it was mostly a joke. "Can you really blame me if my paranoid fears about my powers are a little more sophisticated than yours?"
"But is that really all these dreams are?" Will speculated out loud. "We've shared dreams before, and some of them have predicted the future. We all woke up screaming with our powers going haywire. There's definitely a pattern here."
"Maybe, but I'm the only one having trouble controlling my powers now," Taranee pointed out. "That breaks the pattern."
Will and Irma were suspiciously silent.
"Guys?" Taranee asked, pointedly. Then she winced against a headache and waited for an explanation while trying not to pass out or heat up again.
"I've been generating an electric charge since I woke up. I'm not sure, but I think if I let it get out of hand, I'll become a human magnet, and start 'qunetss-ing' people and things by accident besides. I've been shooting electricity into the ground with every step to keep the charge down," Will admitted, lifting her leg to show off the scorch mark on her sneaker bottom around a hole where foot could be seen past charred sock. "I've been shocking you with the excess to keep it regulated here in the car."
"Gee, glad I could be service!" Taranee snapped, upset, but too tired to focus it properly. "When did you plan on telling us about this, before or after one of us got accidentally fried?" Her headache was too strong to let her point out further the stupidity of that behavior.
"Yeah, well, I'm not exactly sweating over here," Irma helped deflect some blame from Will. "Actually, I'm pretty sure I'm leaking." Both her friends gaped openly at her, increasing the natural embarrassment one would feel at admitting that kind of thing. Now that they were looking, it was pretty obvious that she was unnaturally damp, especially considering the fire. Water was beading on her face and she had the look of someone who'd just come in from being caught in a rainstorm. "Thing is, I can't tell if I'm creating water out of my body, absorbing it, or just condensing it out of the air."
"Ho-OW," Taranee was interrupted by another shock from Will, and she paused to give the red-head a dirty look, "How does that make a difference, exactly?"
"Well, it matters to me!" Irma explained indignantly. "I already know I'm going to leave a puddle every place I sit down until I fix this. I'd like to know if I'm going to retain water, or if I'm going to dehydrate, so I can figure out what to do. I'd rather not bloat like a corpse or wind up a shriveled husk because I was burying my head in the sand instead of dealing with this."
"Oh…" Taranee said, chastised. They all fell to silence, and the dark girl was back to nodding off in no time. Will shocked her again, and because she hadn't discharged recently, it was powerful and painful enough draw a little shriek from the nearly-sleeping girl.
"Are you girls alright back there?" Ms. Vandom took a break from the strenuous task of driving without streetlights or traffic signals to check on her three charges. The girls all gave her big, fake smiles, and she turned back to the road.
"Are you sure?" Will whispered, not at all happy with the situation.
"Trust me," Irma was confident about this, at least, "She's certain we've been talking about the latest issue of Cosmo back here."
"I didn't even know you could do that," Taranee mentioned, dodging Will's next electric discharge and poking her with a scalding-hot finger in revenge. Will gasped and shook the hand with its tiny new burn, muttering evil things and discharging her electricity into the car floor. The exchange was all in good fun, and did much to alleviate their mutual nerves about the frightening things happening to their powers.
"Well, if nothing else, my mind-mojo has been seriously stronger," Irma bragged, "I've been doing stuff I never imagined. Come to think of it, that's another point in the 'this is a W.I.T.C.H. situation' column. Maybe our powers are expanding again, like when the veil came down."
"Uh, guys?" Taranee tried to interrupt, but was ignored for the moment.
"Oh, this had better not be the same thing!" Will sounded murderous, "Last time was all giggles and lollipops, but if they knew this one was coming and they didn't warn us…" she paused, and lightning plaid around her fingers and flickered inside her eyes. Then she deflated. "We destroyed tons of property, maybe hurt people, and Taranee is officially homeless. If those fogies in Candracar could have stopped this… they have some explaining to do."
"GUYS!" Taranee shouted, and both girls were startled, following her wide-eyed gaze out the windows. The city around them was devastated.
"Crap—it looks like this place was hit by an earthquake!" Irma said, and she was right. All around them, the high-density housing blocks and commercial buildings of downtown Heatherfield were shattered and half-crumbled. Nothing had actually collapsed, but several buildings looked to be close. "Do you think Cornelia…?" Irma didn't have the heart to finish the question.
"I don't think there's any doubt. I mean, take a look at that!" Will pointed out the front window, and her friends leaned over to follow her finger. Ahead of them, the apartment complex where Cornelia's mother rented a high-end bungalow loomed in the darkness, lit only by moonlight. Even in the sparse lighting, it was obvious that something unbelievable had happened, because the trees and grasses cultivated on its roof and balconies had overgrown until the building seemed more like a wizened jungle temple than a metropolitan condominium.
"Goodness, what is going on tonight?" Ms. Vandom wondered aloud from the driver's seat. "Was there really an earthquake? Maybe that caused the flood, the fire, and the blackout? But… I don't remember feeling any shaking when the blackout happened, what about you, honey?"
"I was… I was asleep, Mom," Will reminded her, not eager to recall her embarrassing screams and childish clinginess. Instead she looked around at the cracked stone and shattered windows, wondering how much all that damage would cost to fix and grateful nothing had collapsed. If they got out of the night causing nothing but property damage with this malfunction, they'd be unbelievably lucky.
At the Hale's Apartment Building
Irma's dad pulled over his police cruiser and stepped out to scan the streets with a flashlight and report to his HQ, and he waved to them as they pulled by. Moments later, Ms. Vandom pulled her car up in the street outside Cornelia's building, not even bothering to park legally in the hard blackout darkness. Everyone piled out of the car, and they immediately found most of Cornelia's neighbors standing in the lobby our out in front of their apartment building.
"I'm telling you, these plants have got to be some kind of prank!" one woman exclaimed loudly to her beefy, thick-necked husband. Both were wearing bath robes and looked at the side of their building with gas lanterns. "The fact that the earthquake happened at the same time that someone replaced our shrubberies with this mess is only a coincidence!"
"Excuse me, miss," Will scooted up and got her attention. "Do you know where the Hale family is right now?"
"Oh…" she seemed put-off by being interrupted in the middle of her harangue, but smiled at the cute young women checking on their friends in this disaster. "Well, frankly my dear, I haven't seen young Cornelia or that adorable little Lillian at all tonight. I know their mother was supposed to be out of town visiting relatives, and I suppose her father stayed late at his bank on business…"
"Thanks anyway," Will had to suppress a flash of panic as she turned back toward Irma and Taranee, her mother a ways to the side, staring at the building in amazement.
"What do you think happened to them? Where are they?" Irma asked, looking a bit more worried than one might expect, considering her history of friction with the tall blonde.
"Who knows?" Taranee sounded annoyed, and she was wincing as she held her head. "I can't hear my own thoughts right now, much less anyone else's. She probably hid when her powers started malfunctioning. We're just going to have to go in and search for her."
"Correction," Will eased her back and had her sit on a public bench, "we're going to go in and search for her. You're going to sit on this fireproof bench and think cold thoughts while you concentrate on not setting things on fire or burning people."
"But—" Taranee began to protest, until Irma flicked some water off her fingertips and the droplets exploded into steam before touching her skin. "Um… okay. I'm going to try and get my head clear and contact Hay Lin. Hurry, guys, we need to get everyone together as soon as possible."
Will and Irma nodded and smiled reassurance at their friend, and then made a break for the building. They were practically inside when Will's mom noticed them.
"Where are you going?" It was all she could do to keep from shrieking in frustration. "That building was just hit by an earthquake! It's not safe!"
Irma turned at the door and gave her a hard look, and that sent her over to have a pleasant conversation with the older couple still speculating on who had exchanged their manicured display plants for untamed specimens from the botanical garden. Will was actually a bit upset by this one, as there had been an incredible look of anguish on her mother's face before Irma's power had sent her away, but there was just no time to stop and worry about it.
Inside was almost as bad as outside, with nervous people lingering in every doorframe, examining cracks in their walls or standing around with coffee mugs, chatting the night away. Every potted plant in the lobby had burst out of its container and there was dirt and tangled roots everywhere. Will and Irma slipped past the residents, mind-controlled their way past the superintendent in the stairwell once he confirmed that the upstairs was evacuated and off-limits, 'borrowed' an emergency lantern from where it had been left to light the stairs, and were breathless at the top of the apartment complex in minutes. That's where they ran into their first real obstacle.
"What the heck?" Irma cursed even more than that under her breath as she leaned against the frosted glass door that separated the stairwell from the top floor of the apartment complex. "It's stuck! I don't get it—I saw Cornelia's neighbors down there, it must have been passable earlier!"
"Look!" Will pointed to the bottom of the door, where a shadow of knotted roots could just be seen through the glass' decorative coating. "It must have grown out since the floor was evacuated. It's wedged in there good… I don't think we'll be able to push the door open."
"Great! What now?" Irma sat down on the stairs with a loud splashing noise, sending a stream trickling down the steps.
"Come on, Irma," Will smirked, and an electric aurora started to play around her fingertips. "We've destroyed the city's power grid, the water pipes, a beautiful suburban home, most of the downtown area, and we don't even know what Hay Lin did! You think I'm going to worry about a glass door at this point?"
"You were always one for the direct approach," Irma half-taunted, but shared Will's smirk. It was kind of silly to worry about what they broke at this point.
"Still, there's no need to send broken glass flying all over the place." With that, Will stepped up to the door and placed her glowing hand near the edge where the hinges would be on the other side. Homing in on the feel of the metal reacting to her quintessence force, she put her hand directly opposite to the hinge and blasted some electricity into it. The hinge popped off like it had been shot out of a cannon, and there was a loud noise as it crashed into the stone façade on the opposite side of the lobby. "Umm," Will winced at the loud bang, "That was supposed to be a bit more discreet."
"Just hurry up and get the door open," Irma moaned, "The draft in here is killing me in these wet clothes!"
Will blew off the other hinge, and with Irma's help, gently lowered the door forward into the stairwell. Stepping around it, they made their way onto the floor where Cornelia's apartment had always been, and instead they found a tropical rainforest. Every surface was grown over by roots and leafy branches, vines hung down from the ceiling, and it smelled like a cross between an open sewer and a flower garden.
"Hello?" a tiny voice came from the thickest of the foliage outside Cornelia's apartment. Irma lifted their lantern higher, and a smaller light approached from the underbrush, until it finally burst open and revealed Lillian. She was filthy, her pink nightie covered in soil, and she carried a dim toy flashlight in one hand and her beloved cat Napoleon in the other arm. "Will? Irma? Is it really you?"
"Lillian?" Will knelt down and opened her arms, and the little girl fell right into her embrace, tears flowing freely.
"Oh Will," Lillian sobbed, "it was horrible! Everything was shaking, and the plants all blew up, and mommy wasn't home, and Cornelia—she was eaten by a monster tree! And then it was all dark, and I was all alone, and—and—I want my mommy!"
"Shh, shh, it'll be okay now. We're here, and we won't let any monster plants get you." Will made questioning eyes at Irma, who could only shrug. Then Will gave Irma a much more serious stare, one with lightning bolts literally sparking from her eyes, and the brunette finally got her point.
"You know Lillian," Irma bent down next to them, "you're probably dreaming right now—I mean, having a nightmare."
"Sniff—what?" Lillian turned her puffy, red eyes to Irma. "But this is all so real…"
"Oh, no, come on!" Irma gave her a big smile as she started to work her mind, "plants don't eat people! None of this stuff can actually be happening, so you must be having a dream." Lillian didn't seem convinced, even with Irma's mind control adding weight to the absurd argument, and so Irma played her last gambit. "In fact, I'll bet any second now, something truly absurd will happen, and prove this is a dream." While Lillian rubbed tears from her eyes, Irma winked at Napoleon several times.
The enchanted cat took her hint, and wiggled out of the little girl's grip. The Heart of Earth temporarily stored within him had given him many powers, and all of them were a secret from his nominal owner.
"You know, you really shouldn't listen to Irma," the cat said, while licking one of his paws. "She's a terrible fibber."
"Okay…" Lillian mumbled, her eyes blown up wide, "I'm dreaming! And… I think I want to wake up now…"
"That's right sweetie," Irma patted her hair, "just close your eyes tight, and when you open them, the nightmare will be all over." She pressed in with her power of suggestion at the same time, and Lillian fell into a deep sleep the moment her eyes closed.
"We're leaving her in your care while we figure out what happened to Cornelia," Will said, as she gently nestled the child onto some soft leaves, "Do you have any idea what's going on here?"
"Frankly," the cat made a disdainful sound, "I was certain all blame for this rested with you guardians. Then again, what do I know? No one tells me anything."
"Yes, okay, we get the message," Will grinned at the ensorcelled feline, "after we salvage Cornelia and get this situation under control, we'll negotiate."
"The solution to my angst will involve cream and tuna—lots of cream and tuna," the cat gave an amused flick of the tail, and took up a sentinel's watch over Lillian.
"I don't think electricity blasts are going to do the job this time," Irma said. She'd gone over to inspect Cornelia's apartment, the epicenter of the earthquake and the plant explosion, and found the door completely walled off by roots and vines. "Any more bright ideas, Will?"
"Well, Taranee could take these things out in a cinch, but she'd probably burn the whole building down in the state she's in right now." Will considered the problem, thinking in silence as she watched water drip from Irma's outfit and slide down the foliage she'd wedged herself into. Her eyes literally flashed with light as she got an idea. "Irma, plants are full of water! What if you pull the water out—they might wither away!"
"Huh…" Irma thought about it, and then matched Will's smile. "Okay, one batch of sun-dried vegetables, coming right up!" She drew her hands up and used some of her power to whip all the moisture off of her body and over to one side—a futile act of defiance as she was wet again in seconds. "Only… you know… dried by me, instead of the sun…"
"Just do it!" Will grumbled.
Irma held out her hands, and all the plants rattled to attention like they'd just been jerked up on hidden strings. With a grunt of effort, Irma clenched both fists, and a million droplets of water squelched out of the plant litter like the spray from exploding water balloons. The withered dregs left behind disintegrated the moment they touched them, and the door was clear. Unfortunately, it opened inward, and that side, presumably, was still choked with plants. It didn't take long for Will to repeat her hinge-annihilation trick, though, and the two girls pried the door out of its frame, revealing the heart of the jungle.
The moment they dipped their lantern into the pitch-dark rainforest that had once been an urban apartment, a muffled sound of distress began to emanate from somewhere in the foliage. For a while, they just couldn't localize it, and they actually had to squeeze inside and search for a bit. Eventually, though, Irma found a pair of blue eyes peeking out from some dense growth at roughly knee-height, and managed to rip off the vines that held Cornelia gagged.
"GAH!" the blonde gasped for a single, relieved breath as her mouth was uncovered. "Thank goodness you guys came!" Cornelia used her first breath to express gratitude. Apparently, she was bound from head to toe to the apartment floor by a huge weight of roots and vines, so much that they covered every inch of her body. "Now, what took you so long? I've been trapped in here for almost an hour! I mean, here I am in serious distress, and you two are bumbling around like two blind—mmmfff!"
Cornelia's tirade was cut short when the vines Irma had ripped away came to life and wrapped themselves back onto her skin, re-gagging her. Will and Irma just looked at one another, and spontaneously burst out laughing. When they were under control again, it was Irma who spoke first.
"What's the matter, Corny, don't you control plants? Did we have a little revolution or something? The slaves became the masters, right?" Her grin was epic, and the muffled curses coming back from Cornelia were truly vile.
"Enough fun, Irma, just do you dehydration trick and get her out of there," Will settled things with a simple command. "It's getting late, and I'm still worried about Hay Lin."
"Okay… if I have to. Still, it seems a shame to steal Cornelia away from her new admirers." Even as she taunted, Irma squelched the vines holding her friend's mouth shut, and so Cornelia's response was not gagged.
"Huh, very funny, Irma, now would you two stop fooling around? Just use the Heart, Will. I'll be out of here in no time!"
"Right, because our powers without being magnified by the heart are working SO well." Will shook her head. "No, you tell us what happened to you, we'll find a way to get you out."
"Ug, fine!" Cornelia rolled her eyes and began to talk. "I woke up tonight from a nightmare where every step I took made an earthquake and knocked over buildings—until I became an elemental, like back when we schooled Cedric. I woke up, but the earthquake was real! I was trying to get Lillian to safety when that stupid plant mom keeps by the door just reached out and grabbed me! Oh no, wait—do you know if Lillian is alright?"
"We found her outside and convinced her she was dreaming," Will answered, so Irma could concentrate on her task. "She'll be fine."
"Oh," Cornelia sighed in relief, and then went on, "I used my power to try and get the thing off me, but it just grew bigger! Every time I try to use my powers to control the plants, they just grew. All they seem to want to do is give me a big, dirty, stinky hug, but even that was making it hard to breathe."
"I still think this is like a revolt, with the plants being the oppressed villagers who rise up against the evil Queen Corny," Irma said. Cornelia gave her a dirty look and she stuck her tongue out in reply.
"Keep it up, Irma," Cornelia warned, "We'll just see how long it takes me to help you out the next time you're being molested by an army of grabby vines."
"You know, considering our history as guardians, I might have to take that threat seriously," Irma replied, frowning. Her frown became a glare as her efforts to rip off the vines were stalled. "Ug! These things are resisting my powers," she grunted as she tried to remove a larger block of vines, only for some of the one's she'd already pulled to grow back at alarming speed. "Will, give me a hand here!"
"If I shock them, I shock Cornelia too," Will threw her hands up in apology. "I guess I could try to animate some garden tools or something. You wouldn't happen to have a lawnmower hidden in here someplace, would you, Cornelia?"
"Be serious!" Cornelia snapped, looking terrified with her hands still trapped and her powers useless. "We haven't got anything like that, and my dad's hair clippers and the food processor are not going to make a dent in these things!"
"GUYS, I FOUND YOU!" The shattered glass doors leading to the balcony were suddenly and explosively cleared of foliage as a gigantic blast of wind crushed into the apartment and knocked Will and Irma off their feet.
"Uh… Hay Lin?" Irma was the first to recognize the voice, although the blast of wind had also been a strong clue. "Where are you? And could you tone it down a bit?"
"Sorry," the word was much softer, barely whispered, but it still accompanied a whirlwind blast of icy-chill air. "I can't stop the wind from coming when I talk, and I've been stuck invisible and flying since I woke up."
"Brrr," Will held her bare arms against the chill gusts of wind, "Hay Lin, I'm glad you're okay, but if that's the way your power has messed up, you'll have to keep your mouth shut! I'm just cold, but Irma's problem makes it so she can't stay dry! You'll turn her into a popsicle!"
"Yeah! I'm already lightly frosted over here," the brunette cut in, her teeth chattering. When she stood up, her clothes clinked as bits of ice broke away and fell off.
"Don't listen to them, Hay Lin," Cornelia said, struggling mightily to get at least one hand out before the vines closed in again, and failing. "Maybe now that you're here we can make some progress. These two were bungling the job, big time."
"Cornelia, you're right," Will told her, "and also: shut up before I take Irma's advice and let the dang vines keep you. Concentrate on Taranee out by the street and see if her telepathy is working again yet." Now that she had a plan, the orders came naturally to the young red-head. "Irma, wet down those vines. When they're soaked, Hay Lin, I want you to freeze them. Cornelia's dad plays golf… right? So…"
Will felt around with her electrically charged sense for metal until she located some golf clubs in a corner. Drawing out a pair, she hefted them, grinned at the other girls, and stood aside as they leapt into action. In moments, the vines were frozen, and Will tossed Irma a nine iron while she took up a titanium driver.
"Hay Lin, back off so we don't accidentally hit you. Irma… let's prune some hedges." Will delivered the final line with mocking dramatic flair, and everyone groaned.
"Okay… that was so terrible, I should have said it!" Irma giggled, and the two began to hack at the vines, which shattered near the roots and did not grow back.
"Guys?" the voice came directly to their minds, and Taranee was with them then, in spirit if not in person. "I think I'll be able to connect our minds again now… hold on and…"
"Can you here me?" Hay Lin's excited thoughts washed through their brains like a tide. "Oh yes! I thought I was gonna explode if I didn't get a chance to tell you all what happened to me tonight! I mean, afterward, when I realized I was stuck invisible and I couldn't get Taranee to hear my thoughts—and then I heard her scream in my mind—I knew I had to find you, and when I saw T's house burnt down, and Irma's flooded—but I'm here now. Anyway… you guys… the Silver Dragon… I…"
"Oh no… the whole restaurant?" Cornelia asked, her joy at wrenching her hands out of the vines dampened by the news.
"What about your family?" Irma broke in, distraught. "Was anyone hurt? What happened?"
"Mom and Dad were out at a late movie, and grandma is in Candracar." Some soft sniffling noises came from one corner of the room, and tiny whirlwinds built among the leaves in sympathy for Hay Lin's distress. "But my home… my family's livelihood… it was wiped off the map… and I don't even know what happened! All I remember is that I was having this dream where I was singing for this band, but when I hit a long note, it caused a tornado!"
"And then you became an elemental again, like when we fought Cedric?" Taranee supplied. The sound of Hay Lin gasping, along with the accompanying blast of wind, made interesting counterpoint to Irma and Will's grunts of effort as they did their indoor gardening.
"Oh no, are we sharing dreams again?" In a silent conversation set to the sound of expensive golf equipment becoming dented junk, Taranee caught Hay Lin up on everything that had happened to the rest of them. When she finished, the invisible Asian girl was so staggered that mumbled an astonished "Wow," dipping the temperature in the room a good three degrees.
"Guys, this is a nightmare!" Hay Lin didn't hesitate to state the obvious. "When my parents get home and see that a freak tornado wrecked our entire street, and they can't find me—what am I going to do? They'll think I'm dead! What are WE going to do? We've destroyed half the city tonight!"
"Freedom!" Cornelia interrupted that dire question as she yanked her feet out of her frozen vine coffin, jumped up and threw her hands out in unbalanced excitement, and was promptly grabbed around the wrist by a vine on the wall. "EEEK!" she turned to start smacking girlishly at the plant, only for another fifteen vines to stretch toward her. "NoNoNo—GET OFF!"
"Stop that!" Will launched an electric barrage at the vines just as Cornelia pulled the first one off. Her blast was far larger than she intended, and the flash of light blinded them all as the thunderclap rocked the whole building. Fortunately, the vines took a direct hit, incinerating them. Unfortunately, Irma had to douse the smoking hole left in the wall before the fire could spread. Shouts of alarm came up from the streets below, but somehow, Lillian hadn't been woken by the noise.
"Hay Lin," Cornelia sighed as she looked at the charred crater in her apartment wall, trying to scrape mud from her bare skin and the mismatched shirt and shorts she'd pulled on in the dark, "I'm sorry about your house, but look on the bright side. As soon as we get you visible again, you'll have an excuse people will believe. How am I going to explain all this with an earthquake?"
While she said her piece, the plants around Cornelia smoldered feebly and died away, and the harried earth guardian sent Will a look of dubious appreciation, only for her eyes to bulge out the next moment. Every other vine in the apartment was stretching in her direction, stopped from seizing her only by the fact that they were too short to reach.
"This is SO gross," Cornelia said, carefully sticking to the area Will and Irma had cleared of plants, "I'm going to be having nightmares about tonight, I just know it."
"Let's just get back outside," Will groaned, staring at her hands in subdued distress as she remembered the way Matt had died in her nightmare.
Everyone agreed, and with Irma and an invisible, floating Hay Lin to clear a path, Cornelia managed to collect her dozing sister without suffering more than a casual poking by the remaining plants. Will brought up the rear, so that when they integrated themselves back into the crowd in the lobby and filed out into the warm summer night, she didn't see what was waiting for her outside until it was too late.
"Wilma Vandom!" Her mother shouted, ambushing her with a tone that promised a ferocious argument, "I just don't know what to do with you!" Will and her mother were suddenly the center of attention, even the reunion of Taranee with Cornelia and Hay Lin took a sideline as Ms. Vandom blew her top.
"Mom, what are you—"
"I know something strange is going on here tonight, Will," Ms. Vandom stared daggers at her daughter, but the look was underscored with a terrified layer of confusion. "And somehow, I know it has something to do with you and your friends! You don't get an earthquake, a blackout, a housefire, a flood, and a tornado all in one town, in one night, unless the causes are related."
"Tornado? Mom, what are you—" Will's evasion was overpowered by her mother's concern.
"Mr. Lair told me that your friend Hay Lin's family restaurant was leveled by a tornado! A tornado! In Heatherfield! Hay Lin is missing, and her parents are going crazy. Not only that, but this freak, localized earthquake is centered right on the Hales' apartment building, and the firefighters couldn't find the cause of the fire at the Cooks' house. All that, and I know…" Will's mom's eyes were bright with tears, "I know that you had something to do with the blackout! Now I need you to tell me what's going on! Are you in danger? Baby, if you were hurt, I don't know what I would—"
Will's mother paused, frozen stiff right in the middle of grilling the truth out of her daughter. Will felt her heart pounding all the way up in her throat, and managed to catch her breath only with difficulty as she realized something had interceded to save her.
"Thanks, Irma, but what took you so long?" Will asked, glancing around her statue-stiff mother to find her friends. All of them had shock-widened eyes too, and Irma was looking totally confused from over where she was using Taranee's involuntary heat to warm the chill out of her fingers.
"Can't claim credit for this one," Irma admitted, and hesitantly pointed over behind Will, drawing her attention back to the crowd. When she turned, she quickly found that the entire crowd had frozen stiff, almost like they were paused in time.
"What the…?" was as far as Will got, before a dreadful night reached its perfectly awful conclusion.
"Guardians of the Infinite Worlds!" a booming, elderly voice, thick with authority assaulted them all, and their heads whipped around in a common motion to find a tall, wizened, extravagantly-bearded man in a white robe standing there in the dark streets with them.
"Tibor?" Will recognized him as The Oracle's right-hand man and a senior member of the Council of Candracar, but to find him here was so unexpected that she didn't believe her eyes at first. "Um, I suppose I'm glad to see you! Listen, something is going seriously wrong with our guardian powers—"
"I'll say!" The old man cut her off, sounding angrier than they'd ever heard him, "You've been using them to wreck a defenseless city and terrorize innocent people!"
"WHAT?" Will growled, and all the other guardians made similar sounds of furious protest at that vile, totally unfair evaluation of the night's trials.
"Are you kidding me, you think I did this on purpose?" Cornelia looked ready to maim, and Irma actually grabbed her to hold her back.
"Our powers aren't working right!" Will informed the councilman. "They're going crazy, and we've suffered as much as anyone because of it! I mean, for goodness sake, Taranee and Hay Lin are homeless!"
"Be that as it may," Tibor began, clearly having trouble believing them, "The council has been informed of this destruction, and I cannot allow you to continue to roam free."
"So… are you here to help us get back control or…?" Taranee trailed off, not liking where this was going.
"I'm here," Tibor drew himself up to his full, not unimpressive height, "To place you all under arrest on the charge of criminal misuse of your guardian powers."
All of the girls began to protest all at once, and Will, Irma, and Cornelia actually looked ready for a fight. Before things got out of hand, Tibor held up both hands, and his glower of authority was so overpowering that they actually became quiet.
"I'll warn you now, if you are innocent of these charges, and I believe, from your record, that this is not at all unlikely," he said this almost grudgingly, "resisting arrest will irrevocably ruin any chance of being vindicated during your trial."
"Trial?" Taranee said, actually sounding relieved. "We get a trial?"
"If you come quietly, you will be tried by the council," Tibor acknowledged her hopeful tone. "If you are truly not at fault for this mess, you have nothing to fear."
"What about our families? What will they think about us up and disappearing tonight?" Will asked, glancing to her mother with open concern.
"Your families will face memory conditioning. As far as they know, you are all at a boarding house outside of the city until the disaster is resolved. If your absence becomes protracted, something else will be arranged."
Will nodded, and then looked at each of her friends, at least, the visible ones. One by one, they gave her the okay, with Taranee passing along Hay Lin's silent agreement.
"Okay, we'll come quietly," Will said, and then turned to one side. She could just see a feline shape in the shadows under the bench where Cornelia had laid Lillian down to rest. "I just hope someone gets word to all of our friends about what's happened to us," she said, just a bit louder than she should have if she were talking to herself as she pretended. The feline shadow vanished, swallowed by the night.
When the girls had followed Tibor through a fold in space, and were well gone from the dimension of Earth, the magic holding all the bystanders unaware was released. Susan Vandom wandered around in a daze for a few minutes before spotting Lillian on the bench. Suddenly, the memory conditioning Tibor had left constructed a plausible story, and she picked up the pretty little child and shook her gently awake.
"Who?" Lillian asked, still mostly asleep.
"Hello, you don't know me, but I'm Will's mom. You know Will, Cornelia's friend?"
"Will is my friend, too," the girl protested, and Ms. Vandom smiled at her.
"Of course, my mistake. Anyway, your dad got stuck in the bank during the earthquake, and he asked me to come check on you."
The fact that this story didn't make any sense was immaterial. Everyone involved was part of the memory conditioning, and it would make the story true for them.
"Cornelia got eaten by a tree," Lillian said, jerking a bit more awake. "I saw it."
"Oh, you were just having a nightmare. Cornelia is with Will and the other girls outside of town."
"Oh yeah," Lillian brightened immediately. "Napoleon was talking, so it must have been a dream. But… where is Napoleon?"
"Napoleon is a cat, yes?" Ms. Vandom calmed her new charge, "he'll be fine. Now let's just sit tight and wait for your dad to get home, okay?"
Lillian agreed, and the façade was complete. As far as Earth was concerned, Will, Irma, Taranee, Cornelia, and Hay Lin were safe and sound. Fortunately, Napoleon the cat, the one creature who knew differently, was hurrying to spread the word.
Next Chapter: Guardians No More