Disclaimer: Sorcerer's Apprentice is the property of Walt Disney Pictures, etc.


Opelousas, Louisiana, 12:18 PM

The blast of blue-hot energy shot through the air, cutting wakes visible amidst the humidity, pulsing with a cracking boom as it hit the tree only inches from Ursula's head. Righting herself from her prone position on the soggy ground, she swung her quarterstaff in a sharp half-turn, drawing power from the arc and sending a pulse of fiery red towards the opposing sorceress. Lisette neatly dispersed it with a wave of her fist. She'd always been quick on her feet.

Lisette didn't pause but drew up more plasma bolts in a complicated flourish of hands. Probably a gesture of her own invention, Ursula thought as she considered necessary counter measures. The Crovian Defense seemed best, and she tilted her staff downwards, recalling the precise formation of energy and movement required. It had been a while since she'd done this one, but assuming it worked…

The blast soared towards her almost faster than she could see, but Ursula remembered the old form in her gut and let her instincts take control. With a whack, she shot out at the ball of energy like a cricketer, feeling the shockwaves radiate up her staff and absorbing them back into her body through her hands. Lisette's plasma bolt hurtled towards its maker with the same intense speed, cutting gusts through the fog of the bayou. From her vantage point twenty feet away, Ursula could see Lisette form her mouth into a tiny gasp, eyes going just a little wide as the lightning-like ball struck her directly in the chest.

The effect was instantaneous. Lisette exploded into a blast of fiery light like a grenade going off, rippling concussions through the air so hard Ursula felt her eardrums compress and threaten to pop. She made a hopeless attempt to grab hold of a tree branch, but the blast hit her a moment later and she went soaring backwards. It sent her ten feet distant, flat on her back in six inches of muddy, brackish water, but, thankfully, alive. Unlike Lisette. Ursula lay for a second completely still, waiting for the ringing in her ears to stop and the sweeping, dizzy feeling to leave her head, before pushing herself into a sitting position and observing the scene.

A large gaping hole in the grass and earth stood where Lisette had previously been, the fog slowly creeping back from the vacuum left by the blast. Not a trace of her nemesis remained. Yes, the Crovian Defense had definitely been a wise choice.

Ursula stuck her staff into the wet earth to pull herself upright, groaning at the pain in her back. She pushed her mud-matted red hair out of her face and tried to shake a bit of water off her clothes. It was a fairly useless enterprise. Hobbling slightly from one of Lisette's previous attacks, she began trudging through the swampy grass, poking at a root here and there with her quarterstaff. Finally, she came to the spot. She picked up a wet and slimy object, covered in foul smelling mud and completely unrecognizable as the sinister object she knew it was. She sent a tiny shot of magic through her hand and shook off most of the mud. Underneath, it had the vague shape of a doll, although a horrible twisted and mutilated one, apparently made of rags and twigs.

She sighed inwardly. So much destruction for such a little thing. Feeling slimy and dirty with it in her hand, although that may have just been her filthy clothes, she slogged to the bank and found the lead box. She placed the doll inside, glad to no longer be touching it, and sealed the box with a tap of her finger.

The box was heavy in her hands. She leaned her quarterstaff against her shoulder and stared down at it. "To New York we go," she said to herself, and with a sinking feeling in her stomach, she and the box left the swamp.


A/N: Will there be more? Probably, as I had fun writing this for the first time in a long while, but most definitely if you tell me you want more.