Guardian Witch

Rise of the Guardians

Chapter 6

"You're a witch?"

"Izvinite?" Excuse me? Natasha clearly understood him. But because of the strange presence and equally strange question that came with it, her mother tongue had slipped out before she could translate it.

Natasha, though still confused, was quick to recover from the shock. She eyed the male in front of her closely while also paying attention to noticeable presence of four others behind her. She could tell that they weren't the normal humans that would walk in to the park. They were more... like her. Other than Kira and her other sister, she really had no experience in meeting other people who could see her.

She took a risk and turned to look at the four mysterious figures behind her. A short, golden man with a gentle expression stood, but his eyes held a suspicious caution as they watched over her. An abnormally large, gray rabbit stood on its hind legs, a leather holster is slung around its left shoulder, on its wrists were leather brazens with an orange stone set in it, and in each hand was a boomerang. Another strange being caught her eye, though it was a rather beautiful one, she couldn't really tell what sort of being it was. It had green, blue, and yellow feathers covering her entire body but its face, and on its back were three pairs of transparent wings. Perhaps a fairy of some sort. The last figure was a tall and burly man with long white hair and a beard. He wore a red coat with fur edgings and a black fur hat on his head, in his hands he wielded swords. It seemed that everyone but him seemed to give off a foreign smell.

"Vy russkiy. Kak interesno." You're Russian. How interesting. "No ostal'nyye kompanii ne." But the rest of your company aren't.

"Uh, North, a little translation would be nice." The rabbit nudged the Russian man. Natasha's eyes met with the Russian's, who she now knew as 'North'. North did not answer the rabbit, instead he continued staring back at the girl.

"Who are you?" Natasha asked, calm enough to speak in English. "And what do you want?"

Natasha could feel a rise in tension in the atmosphere. She watched the group closely, seeing that they were both fervently looking back and forth at each other. She could tell, they had a reason to come here, and seeing that some of them were armed, it was probably not for a good one. Natasha wondered if she would be able to fend them off with one arm disabled.

Her ears perked up as she heard movement from behind her. She quickly turned in time to see the white-haired boy shoot an icy blast from his staff. Natasha raised her hand on instinct, causing the ground in front of her to rise rapidly to defend her from the blast.

"I thought you were controlling the fire?" A voice sounded from above. She looked up and saw that the boy had managed to stand over the suspended ground. Can he fly? She used her available arm and swiped it in a downward motion, forcing the ground back to its original position. Her suspicions proved true when she saw the spirit still hovering in the air. Perhaps, if she got her broom, she could fly after him.

Her thoughts were interrupted when she caught wind of a buzzing sound from behind. Thinking quickly, she swept her hand across the air, making the floor below her slide away to the side before the fairy-like creature flew straight into the spot she was just in.

She's fast.

Natasha prepared herself to strike the fairy creature with a few loose rocks from the ground but stopped when she sensed something peculiar from the earth below her. She dodged just in time before a hole appeared at the very spot she once stood, the overgrown rabbit jumped up from it, throwing one of his boomerangs in her direction. She cursed inwardly, as the object grazed just a bit of her hair as it barely missed her. She dodged it again when it came flying back to its owner.

"You missed, cottontail!" She heard the white-haired boy shout from above her. Natasha took it as a cue to jump to the side, dodging another blast of white from the boy. She whipped her arm upwards, sending a loose chunk of rock from the ground towards the flying spirit, successfully hitting him in the face. It fazed him a little, but failed to knock him out; at least she got something.

"Like you're doing any better, mate." She heard the rabbit scoff.

What is wrong with these people? What do they want?!

Her thoughts were cut short, quite literally, as two swords came swinging in her direction. She moved out of the way and flicking her good arm sideways, calling out from the dirt from the ground to blind him temporarily. She heard him grunt as he tried to rub the dirt from his eyes. Natasha quickly swung around and picked her foot of the ground, pulling a portion of the earth with her sole, and kicked the man away from her.

Satisfied when he did not get up, she turned her attention towards the remaining four. She took a quick glance at the golden man, he hadn't made a move yet and she was suspecting he was going to attack. He seemed to be charging a ball of sand in his palms. Natasha smirked when he noticed that she had set her eyes on him. Whatever he was preparing, she wasn't going to give him time to use it. She stomped her foot against the ground, causing the earth to ripple and crack towards the golden man until a pillar of rock emerged suddenly from the ground in front the man, hitting him straight in his middle.

"Sandy!" She heard someone yell. The gold man let go the orb of golden sand, throwing it in Natasha's general direction. She dodged the sphere easily before it hit a tree and broke apart.

Paying too much attention to her success against the two, she failed to notice the speeding fairy. The fairy was flying in a tornado-like manner towards her, her wings sliced at Natasha's outstretched arm as the Russian girl attempted to protect herself.

Those wings are sharp.

Pain shot through her both her arms, from the newly made cuts and the old burn from Kira, Natasha knew she was in trouble. Ignoring the stabbing feeling from both arms, she summoned her broom, which quickly came to her side. She hopped on to it and began to fly away. So focused on trying to get away from the five beings, she failed to notice another ball of golden sand being thrown her way. The next thing she knew, all had become dark.

After seeing the illustration of Baba Yaga North had shown him, Jack had expected exactly that to be the image of the witch. It was a total shock to him when he saw a girl who looked like she was 16. She was the exact opposite of what he expected. His reaction, in his opinion, was completely appropriate.

When she had questioned the Guardians as to why they were in her territory, Jack took the opportunity of her turning her back towards him to attack. He was surprised when quickly reacted quite extravagantly. Another expectation of her was thrown out the window as she had manipulated the huge wall of earth before him. He had thought that she could control fire, being surrounded by flames when Tooth spotted her. How did the fire get there then? Did those teenagers make it? Jack thought to himself.

She proved to be a rather tough opponent, she was mainly using one hand to control the ground and she was fending off all five of the Guardians at the same time. Jack would be lying to say he wasn't impressed by the witch's determination, no doubt, the other Guardians thought that as well. But even with her level of skill, there was no way she could handle all of them for long. Soon enough, Sandy was able to knock her out with his second shot of dreamsand as she tried to escape. Tooth was quick enough to catch the girl before she could hit her head on the ground.

"I have to admit, that sheila was a tough one."

"Looks like we agree on something, can you believe it." Jack stated.

"It seems that she was injured before we came." The fairy had the witch cradled on her lap as Tooth examined the burnt arm. "And I don't think it was from the fire that we saw."

A silence engulfed upon the Guardians, they were all sharing the same thought. For some reason, they couldn't see the unconscious girl as a witch to be feared. Though she had just displayed a brief yet fearsome amount of strength, the fact that she appeared to be only a mere teenager irked them. Perhaps the influence of Jamie and his friends played a role in this.

"We must bring her to the Pole." North broke the silence. He cleared his throat before continuing on. "We're going to ask her a lot of questions."

"My, my. Just as pathetic as I last left you." Kira smirked at the figure in front of her.

A mesh of black sand swirled slowly before her, twirling around into an orb-like matter. Long strings of sand had tried to reach out towards her, as if trying to pull her into the mess of black. But before it even touched her, it shrank back almost apologetically.

She walked closer towards the sand, dragging a huge sack behind her. The sand began to stir restlessly, it was uneasy towards the old woman, but there was something in the sack that it really desired. Kira, with her free hand, reached out towards the black sand. As her hand approached it, the sand swirled away from her contact, creating a hole right through its core. Another dark figure began to form inside the sand. Its body was entangled with strings of black sand, its head completely covered with the dark matter. Kira grabbed hold of the figure and began to pull it out. Immediately, the sand let go of the figure, untangling itself from the figure's head before shrinking into itself as the old woman pulled out. She threw the figure onto the ground unceremoniously and threw the sack towards the black sand. Delighted at its reward, it began to expand once more and wrap itself around the sack. It ripped through the sack's cloth before heaving out a terrified young woman. She let out a single scream before the sand collapsed on top of her, silencing her almost immediately.

"That should do it." The eldest Baba Yaga grinned wickedly. "You look terrible." Kira turned towards the figure. The figure was starting to stir, his hands reached up to clutch his head. He let out a pained grunt before stumbling onto his feet. The black figure turned to look at the elderly lady beside him. The woman was merely half of his height, yet she gave off more of an intimidating presence than he. Kira eyed the male figure, making sure to give him every bit of mockery she saw fit. After all, she did save him from his pathetic stupor just seconds ago.

"How was your nap," Kira asked tauntingly, "Pitch Black?"