CHAPTER 9

THE WITCH AND THE FANALOKA

The water park at night was a quiet place; at a time like this it wasn't teeming with activity anymore. In the dead of night there was no happy noise of lemurs bathing in the warmth of the summer sun and showing off their skills on the waterslides, no high-pitched chatter and sudden shrieks of laughter when one of them was pushed into a pool. Now the water in all the pools shimmered in the moonlight, its surface smooth and unbroken.

Standing at the top of the biggest waterslide, Karl let his gaze wander across the park – all the slides were set among waterfalls, rock formations, and steep cliffs that dropped far into a canyon below, where they ended in various splash pools and spas.

The more remote area of the canyon was densely forested: a slight movement which he caught between the trees revealed to him the place Julien, Maurice, and Clover had chosen as a hideout to secretly watch the duel and possibly assist him.

Everything was quiet – too quiet, he thought, reaching for his wand, but then his paw halted in midair. His gaze dropped – there was a thin veil of fog curling around his ankles… a tingle of warning coursed through him, a shimmer of deceit.

"I knew you would come, Karl," said a voice from the shadows behind him. "I knew you were no coward."

Karl didn't move. He knew who was there. Slowly he turned around.

The Golden Lemur was standing on the cliff behind him, her graceful fingers clutching her wand.

A brief wave of nostalgia flooded him the first moment he looked at her – this was exactly what she'd looked like when she'd stood before him so long ago, that day in magic school when they'd been paired for a practice duel for the very first time. Her flared dress of baobab leaves with frilly sleeves and neck, those lilac blooms tucked behind her ear… This was the slender grace and the innocent candor of the lovely lemur girl who had been his youth's desire, and for a moment the thought of having to fight her saddened him – but then he swallowed back the memories that had hit him for a second and grabbed his wand.

"Alright, Seven – you and me, one on one!"

The witch bared her teeth, her lips curling in an evil smile. "Let's dance, Karl."

They turned to face each other and bowed; then they raised their wands like swords in front of them and took their stances, starting off right away.

From the tip of his wand Karl released a burst of raw power which shot forth as a red ray of pure magical energy. At the same time Seven set loose a blue beam of her own. Her freezing spell met Karl's heat spell: a firework display of red and blue sparks soared upward from the point where the two powerful forces collided. The fiery red of Karl's spell and the cold blue of Seven's spell sent an array of their colors at least a hundred feet above the ground.

Minutes passed, both of them relentless and unceasing in their test of power and will.

Then, slowly, the blue energy lengthened while the red beam shortened – Karl could see that he wasn't going to be able to hold out much longer. So could Seven; her malicious grin reflected that knowledge. She even intensified her spell – a clashing of blue magical energy exploded high into the air, sweeping her opponent off his feet and sending him slipping down one of the waterslides all the way into the canyon.

"A little out of practice, aren't you, Karl," the witch sneered, gazing down at him from above. "You're no match for me – I shall teach you of every abyss in the world of magic, of the depths where no light reaches!"

Karl could see her lips move as she murmured an incantation. Within moments, the whole park began changing its form – the massive, corkscrewed waterslides spiraling down to the huge pool suddenly came alive, turning into a tangle of venomous snakes. They were everywhere, a writhing mass of deadly reptiles – slithering their way right toward the fanaloka, who was standing with his back to the canyon wall.

"This water park is very nice, but I thought it's lacking the main attraction – so how about a pool of snakes to swim with?! – Oh, sweet poison! Bite him! Bite him!" Seven cheered them on, and Karl could already imagine what would happen when the snakes would reach him. He would feel dozens of fangs rip at his fur and pierce his skin, until he either bled out or the poison killed him. – If they didn't squeeze him to death before, that was.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to relax and focus on a counter spell.

Sensing the power surging through him, he concentrated on the physical forms of the snakes and began to pull them into the energy of the spell, feeling he would succeed even before it was done. He brandished his wand at the first snake, and there was a loud bang –

Wrapped in a silver ball of magical energy, the snakes merged into a single, grotesque creature, half spider crab, half octopus. Its long, thin legs were segmented like an insect's, protruding from a black, spiny body. Another wave of his wand, and it turned away from him and faced his opponent instead, crawling up the wall of the canyon toward Seven in a straight line. The unexpected countermove caught her off guard – in an instant the beast was face to face with her, trying to sink its venomous fangs into the lemur girl's flesh.

Seven leapt just in time to avoid one of the black tentacles which darted at her legs. The creature screeched and thrashed its strong mandible, lurching violently. It reared up its front body, legs instantly doubling its size, long octopus-like tendrils thrashing and trying to stifle its prey.

However, the daring smile on the witch's face didn't even falter – touching the tip of her wand with her finger, she turned it into a razor-sharp scythe.

Then, with a mighty leap from her slender legs, she soared into the sky, higher than any natural lemur could ever jump, slashing with all her strength at the twisting tentacles. With one swish of the sharp blade she managed to slice one of them clean off. Another one reared. Again she sliced with the blade and again it was severed, but there were more and more – she decided to give up the futile effort and turn the attack back on her opponent.

"You cannot defeat me, Karl… any attempt upon your part is fruitless. The dark times are coming, and this world shall soon be teeming with demons!"

When the beast prepared the next attack, Seven deliberately allowed it to come up very close – then, when it was yet an arm's length away from her, she restored her wand's original form and brought the tip against its skull. Its color had turned into a shade of deep indigo – the crashing of the creature's strong mandible calmed as the blue reflected in all eight of its eyes: with a mere touch of her wand she had managed to submit the beast to her will.

Hissing furiously, the creature now turned against Karl and raised itself, fangs exposed, poised to strike. Before he knew what was happening, the fanaloka found himself in a cramped and compromised position as the creature moved closer, ready to kill.

The beast glared at Karl with all eight of its beady blue eyes. He barely had the time to conjure up a protective shield to defend himself against the first attack. Before it could strike again he quickly canceled the shield, turned his wand around, and rammed it into the earth in front of him. The ground shook with tremendous violence, as if thunderstruck; even the walls of the canyon quivered under the energy.

Startled, the beast withdrew from the attack with a squeal and cowered for a while before it dared to rear again – knocking the wand out of Karl's paws with the sweep of a tentacle.

Seven's crystal clear laughter echoed across the canyon. Karl bit back a curse.

Looks like things are getting tough now...!

He raised both arms together in front of him, palms up and open, quickly muttering a spell – but nothing happened. He frantically dove off to the side as the beast attacked again, thrusting at any exposed flesh. From above he could hear Seven chuckle again and now cursed loudly at his forgetfulness – if only he'd remembered the old words correctly! He raised his arms again, repeating the spell in slightly altered words – this time it worked at once. The onslaught of his raw power rushed right into the beast's face, smacking out one of its poison-laden fangs. It dropped into the grass, spraying the ground with black blood.

Karl picked it up – a mighty leap, and he landed square on the back of the beast. He steadied himself, raised his arm and, with all his might, plunged the deadly fang into the skull of his attacker. The creature screeched as its own poison now tracked its way mercilessly through its blood vessels, seeking out the vital organs in an attempt to extinguish its life. The blue eyes rolled and bulged as it fought for survival. Then, after it reared one final time, it crumbled to the ground.

Much to his relief Karl now had time to scramble to his wand; he ran it right through the creature which had come so close to sinking its deadly fangs into him, intending to make sure that its life force was gone. Dark, syrup-like blood oozed from the impaled beast's abdomen and trickled down the wand, and he raised his fist with a shout of triumph.

Behind his back he heard Julien, Maurice, and Clover shouting out as well – too late he realized that they were trying to warn him. He'd been trying to remove the sticky wand from the creature's body and hadn't noticed that while he was busy doing so, one of the tentacles had slowly risen up high into the air again – and now came swinging sideways for the unsuspecting fanaloka, who was sent sprawling to the ground yet again.

"Smash him!" Seven cheered the beast on, "Poison him and then suck out his molten innards bit by bit by bit, so he can feel what it's like to be dying while he's still living and breathing, so he can feel what it's like to be eaten inside out!"

Karl flinched and groaned as the heavily injured beast moved over and sank its huge fangs into his leg and pumped him with deadly venom. He slumped to the ground as poison seared through him.

"Is your turn already over with this?" Seven giggled, the sound of her voice like razors slicing across slate. "Any last words before I send you to see Frank?"

Her laughter was pure and cruel, very dissonant to his ear, floating at him from somewhere far away. And there were more voices and footsteps approaching him – his vision blurring into a haze of disconnected whorls of color, he watched as the three lemurs, well-armed and ready to fight, came running into the battlefield to come to his aid.

"I'm not done yet!" he panted, "You and your minions will be exterminated!"

Through a dark red haze he watched as Clover leapt forward to meet the beast first – she raised her two-headed battle axe overhead and chopped off the last moving tentacle. Severed, it fell to the ground with a hollow thump – there it turned back into the part of a waterslide. Julien and Maurice didn't hesitate either. Julien threw his spear, piercing the creature's chest, and Maurice flung his flail, severing another tentacle, hoping to weaken it further. Clover let loose a volley of arrows for the beast's eyes and then swung her axe again, chopping off two more tentacles in one stroke.

When they were absolutely sure that the demonic creature no longer moved, they gathered around Karl; he looked up at them, trying to focus on their faces through the dizzy veil of pain which rolled up from his leg and clouded his vision. They tried to talk to him, but he couldn't find the strength to utter a word; then they grabbed him by the paws and tried to drag him off the field. But the witch wouldn't let them spoil her victory.

"Come, Harpies!" she intoned, summoning her demonic servants again, "Bring destruction to all that has form, stillness to all that moves, despair to all who live!"

At her words wind began to howl and glowing butterflies began to whirl about them, reassembling into bizarre new shapes, and soon swarms of Harpies came down on them like lightning bolts.

"Oh, no!" At their sight Julien dropped his spear and hid behind Maurice's back. "Not those horrible… things again!" He and Maurice clung to each other, tails curling around each other's waists, but Clover was there to protect them.

"I've won the Tournament of the Doomed – I can well take on a demon!" she muttered, "Get behind me, Your Majesty!"

– And she leapt right at the first Harpy, but the creature swept off into the sky, protesting loudly. Brutish features gleaming with malignity, it stared at Clover as golden light pooled inside its paws, growing brighter and stronger, and soon it was shooting jagged bolts of energy at the lemur girl from above. Two other Harpies joined the first one in doing so – however, highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat as she was, Clover evaded all the attacks with ease. She kicked one in the throat and another in the gut and felt the chill fingers of the third clawing at her back. She dropped and rolled and snapped the demon's neck, and the body dissolved into a dark, oily slick that oozed away slowly.

She jumped back to her feet when Julien's cry ripped through the night – one of the creatures had snatched him by the tail and was trying to lift him up in the air. But Maurice was there to hold him – they were clutching each other's paws fiercely as Maurice leaned with all his weight against the upward pull.

Clover grabbed the spear her king had dropped and hurried towards them, came up in a single bound and, with a brutal thrust, drove the spear beneath the creature's chin and up into its brain. Blood gushed over her wrist as the demon dropped to the ground, wings flapping uselessly. She retracted the spear, and the creature toppled to the ground – a faint cackle left the Harpy's lungs when, just like the other creature, it fully melted away into a puddle of black ooze.

Hanging on to consciousness by a giddy thread, Karl crept over and reached out his shaky paw for his wand – the three lemurs displayed a fighting spirit equal to his own and would keep the witch's servants busy until he would've managed a healing spell. He clutched the wand in his healthy paw and, compressing it between his thumb and forefinger, waved it over the wound. A beam of light, hair-thin, shone down at his injured leg. The wand began humming; its pitch rose and fell, almost musically, above a low buzzing. His leg tingled. He swept the beam back and forth across the wound. Deep inside the gash, tissues sewed themselves together, and the poison in his veins dissipated. He felt his vertigo fade and got to his feet.

Clover and the others were doing well in battling the Harpies, but he knew that sooner or later they were going to lose against creatures with such superior magical prowess, so he better saw to it that they got rid of those demons quickly.

"Arise, Ghouls! Drive these disciples of the underworld back into the darkness where they belong!"

A fountain of silver burst forth from his own wand now, and the earth began to shake; bony fingers clawed their way up from the dirt, and moments later hordes of Ghouls were swarming the canyon – his own army of magical minions, in no way inferior to Seven's Harpies. From out of the deepest, darkest place of the underworld they seemed to come, their bodies reeking, their faces leering like evil circus clowns with ghastly smiles showing rows of sharp teeth. Their fury filled the night with eerie growls and ghostly snarls. Their bodies were so hideously malformed and stripped of any flesh, stained with mud and crawling with white worms, that it was hard to tell whether they resembled any animal at all. They advanced quickly at a full charge, their tall bodies hunched over, their long arms dragging across the stony ground.

Seven gaped in horror as the Ghouls formed a circle in the middle of the canyon; bony hands grabbed bony hands, and then they began to dance: the shadowy figures moved in and out of the moonlight, bending awkwardly, their legs shuffling stiffly. Hideous grins distorted their broken, decayed faces. And as they danced, the earth within their circle split into a bottomless pit, and the Harpies were drawn towards it, floating towards it, the suction of the spell sending them plummeting downward into the open space below.

"Noooo!" Seven wailed; her cry rose and fell on the wind. She grabbed her wand and responded with a spell that would've dispersed any mortal into harmless dust – but the Ghouls deflected her blows with their bodies, flickering as she fired away at their spectral forms. An invisible force was pulling down more and more of her servants, and as soon as all of them had been sucked in, the Ghouls closed the earth back up, eliminating all the Harpies that were in its crevice. When that was done Karl swung his wand toward the assembled group of his minions, pulling them into the energy of another spell, and in moments, they dispersed into a black fog drifting off into the dark.

With all their minions gone, the two magicians were facing each other alone again.

"Hey, was this your last move? I'm counting on you to use all your strength!" Karl teased the witch, though with more casualness than he actually felt, "Really, I thought your Harpies could do better than that."

A flush of anger rose in her cheeks, and she was clutching her wand so hard that for a moment he thought she was going to throw it to the ground and stomp it.

"My turn isn't over yet," she then announced dramatically, "This is only the beginning!"

Seven waved her wand in a complex wide arc across the canyon, and Karl hadn't realized he was standing on a broken part of one of the wooden half-pipes of the crushed waterslides until the witch's spell caused those parts to assume a new form once again. But this time they didn't turn into snakes or other abhorrent creatures – this time they were turning into golden chariots with streaks of fire running jagged through their sides.

Climbing into another chariot across from his, Seven cackled at his obvious bewilderment.

"Oh Karl, my dear old foe, I bid you heartlessly welcome to my circus of horror! – And what a show I have for you tonight!"

With another wave of her wand she set the chariots into motion, sent them spinning around and around, like a madly whirling carousel out of control.

Karl tried to get out immediately but was unable to; his chariot was already moving too fast to jump off. He kept trying, struggling fiercely, horror beginning to spread through him – there was nothing to be done to slow them down. Already he could feel the buildup of energy as they kept spinning madly – the chariots were now forming a complete carousel, acting as if they were suspended from chains and whirling faster and faster. But instead of being forced outward by the centrifugal force they were dragged inward by a dark energy that began to rise in the middle of the carousel – a cloud, spinning just as fast, sweeping at both opponents with the force of a tempest, sucking them in like a churning maelstrom. Streaks of fire were flashing through that cloud, threatening to exterminate the life of any being that dared come too close to that chasm of dark force.

Karl clung to the handrail of his chariot as it swung so hard and fast that it tilted to the side, suspending him out over the roaring abyss. As he kept whirling madly he cursed his opponent, who was riding the chariot across from him – if the witch had the opportunity to demonstrate her powers, she always had to make a show of it! And now she had managed to raise their duel to a whole new level: the challenge consisted in trying to free oneself from the insidious pull of energy while at the same time, with the help of another spell, keeping the other sorcerer from doing so. It was a test that put maximum strain on both their offensive and defensive capabilities. Whoever got sucked into oblivion first would lose the duel – and the winner would be the only one who would finish it alive.

"You'll go down first, Karl! – This time I'll crush you, kill you, and turn you to dust!" – He could hear Seven's shrill voice cut through the destructive noise of the wildly gyrating energy field. – "You should've known better than to mess with me here at midnight, my strongest hour! Twelve chimes from my grandfather clock – thirteen chimes on a dead man's clock! Soon the Sky Spirits will toll your death-knell!"

She was bluffing for sure; yet there was something in those words that triggered a frisson of fear in him. So far they'd only been fooling around, but this was a spell worthy of her reputation – while during the entire time he'd never doubted for a second that he could beat her minions easily, he wasn't so sure about this now. This was a spell more complex than any he knew; he had no idea how to stop it or what he was supposed to do to come out of it in one piece. I didn't even mean to take this fight to the death…!

"As I would expect from you, Yasu," he mocked, "If you do something, you always do it big!" – His face, however, clearly betrayed uneasiness; he couldn't help but stare into the gaping center of the whirlwind with frightened eyes. The sides of it slanted inward at a forty-five degree angle, and a deep howl rose from the whirling chasm, growing louder and louder until it seemed to Karl that the entire world must crumble to pieces from the intensity of the vibrations. He looked for the lemurs, but they were hiding, and he wouldn't have known either how they could've helped him now.

The dark cloud rose, quickly building toward its full fury. Karl and Seven circled each other at breakneck speed, spinning round and round, increasing their speed with every revolution as they kept pointing their wands at each other, locked in the spells they were casting at each other.

"Stop the carousel, Yasu!" Karl yelled, "This is going too far!"

"Not until I have the last Moon Pearl from you."

"Why do you want it anyway?" – The noise of the maelstrom nearly swallowed his voice. – "Look what happened to you the first time you tried that spell – wasn't that enough?!"

"I may have failed the first time, but I won't fail again. I will be the first witch who is mighty enough to make it… and then I will teach you of the passion that starts the instant you surpass the bounds of animals and make you see how wide your world stretches! I'll have you admit I'm the most powerful witch that ever existed; just you wait and see, Karl!"

Seven pressed her advantage, letting herself voluntarily be dragged closer to the center so she could target Karl more easily. She was so close he could see the fury blazing in her eyes as the airstream pummeled into her and whipped her black curls across her face. Her spell was pulling hard on him.

"You know, you've always had the most vicious of fantasies. What would happen to animalhood if you were to obtain such power? – You'd create a world filled with darkness, filled with conflict, filled with pain and despair! – Just like you've done it with Madagascar and all its citizens!"

Spinning round and round and round in an endless circle, the two chariots were dragged deeper and deeper into each trough of a new wave of dark force.

"I know you were fighting those lemurs, too – so why do you keep getting in my way now?!" Seven hissed.

"Because Madagascar is my home, too – and I'm definitely more comfortable fighting Julien for the throne than the two of you!"

The center of the maelstrom was increasingly obscured by strikes of white lightning that were thrown off the lip of the funnel. Lashes of fiery darkness beat down like whips, and streams of night swirled around them as they kept spiraling around the rim.

"What makes you think I'd care about that? Just die already! How long are you going to resist?! Give up and die, Karl!"

They slipped in and out of shadow, appearing and disappearing and reappearing as they kept fighting, clutching their wands in tight-clenched paws. Karl held on like a fever-mad drunk, swaying with the motion of the chariot and slumping against its walls over and over again, doing his best to ignore the pain that was starting to mount everywhere within his body. "You mad woman! Stop this insane game now, or we're both done for!"

He felt his back and legs burn from the exhaustion of holding on. His lungs stabbed. Even if she stopped casting spells on him and let him go now, he didn't know if he'd still have the power to overcome the maelstrom's dreadful strength and pull himself free. He felt he couldn't hold out much longer, and he was pretty sure that Seven was feeling the same, but of course she'd never admit she'd lost control over her own spell.

"Never!" – Her voice betrayed her exhaustion; she, too, was at the end of her strength – yet too stubborn to give up. "I'll beat you to death, mash you and crush you until I'll make you regret being born!"

Karl prayed for the midnight hour to be over soon, but it wouldn't be. So he kept holding on for dear life – the wood of the handrail was streaked with blood where his skin had blistered and torn. And then his strength failed him – when he was lifted up into the dark whirlwind, he saw Seven flying there, too, and yelled at her at the top of his lungs, "You fool! You maniac! You've already challenged the gods once and lost –!"

Just then the darkness was interrupted by a flash of light and an ear-piercing bang – an explosion rocked the whole canyon. It put deep cracks into the ground and several walls. A giant palm tree groaned and then slowly toppled over and down into the canyon – dropping right onto the carousel. The chariots went flying; one dropped right into in one of the pools. Another landed close to the bush behind which the three lemurs were hiding. Splinters of wood became arrows and spears, knifing through the air, looking for a target.

"Hit the deck!" Clover shouted at her fellows, trying to make herself heard above the tremendous noise of bombs, artillery, and grenades that now filled the air.

Maurice caught his king around the waist and yanked him down, trying to land in a protective ball. They hit the ground hard, and then all three of them threw themselves flat upon the earth as bullets rattled around them, zinging off the metal framework that was left of the water slide construction. As soon as they'd taken shelter behind a rock, their gazes flew to the sky, and their eyes widened in surprise as they saw the shapes of four planes silhouetted against the moon.

They heard the tearing screech of another bomb being tossed – the earth erupted in heat and flames where it came down. Not far from them Karl was struggling free from the broken chariot he lay buried under. He gave a wave of his arm across his body, erecting a shield all around him in order to block the stunning force of the next explosion and deflect it.

However, there was none – he and the three lemurs were safe; even from the distance they were, they could see that those planes weren't trying to attack them but were clearly chasing the witch, attempting to end this duel to Karl's advantage.

Karl wondered what this was about.

His gaze flickered across the battlefield – a haze of greenish smoke was hovering over the scene. Of the carousel itself nothing remained but dust, dirt, and debris. The maelstrom was gone; as soon as the carousel had been destroyed, it had begun dissipating and then died down completely.

Karl looked for his opponent. Seven was standing motionless amid the chaos, staring up at the four aircrafts. Karl could tell from the puzzled look on her face that she had never seen a jet plane in her life – nor witnessed the explosion of a bomb only a few feet away from her. She raised her wand against the lead bomber who came diving for her again, and another bomb fell – this time the leading plane was so low that they clearly saw the bomb falling out. Then they heard that harsh whistle again – the bomb missed Seven only a few feet, dropping into a pool next to her. Water splashed all over her, and a huge wave knocked her down on her paws and knees – her wand slipped from her fingers. Before she could get up and grab it again another explosion followed, even closer to her than the first one – Karl could see the scared look in her eyes when she turned on her heels and fled.

A series of staccato explosions followed when the witch scurried back to where the waterslides had been, swiftly dashing forward to take cover in a patch of scrub as a shower of grenades came down behind her, ricocheting off the ground she had just covered. All four pilots seemed to have her in their electronic sights now – before she could reach the shelter of the scrub it was blown up by another bomb.

Karl watched as she scrambled up the framework of the slides, trying to get out of the canyon, but it poorly supported her, the rails wobbling and eventually breaking under her.

All around the explosions kept coming. Weakened by the choking haze of smoke and dust, she began to falter – Karl could see how she began conjuring up a spell that would change her form back into a swarm of golden butterflies, so she could just fly up and out of the canyon easily. However, she wasn't done yet when a rocket came in so fast it was ahead of its sound. She had no time to roll out of the way. It hit exactly in front of her. The spell failed – a couple of butterflies were turned to ashes by the explosion, and when the witch's original form flickered and reappeared, her long, ragged cry of pain echoed through the night.

Karl knew that by now he could call himself the undisputed winner of this duel.

Strangely enough, he didn't even think about it now. Strangely enough, he didn't like what was happening, not one bit.

Don't let yourself be tricked into pitying her – you're only going to regret it later! he told himself over and over, yet couldn't avert his eyes from the terrible sight that made his stomach knot with dismay: the detonation blast had picked Seven up and thrown her to the ground like a rag doll where she now lay writhing, gasping frantically for breath. Blood was pooling under her head; her scant breaths gurgled. Fur and skin had been flayed off her right arm and paw; she curled into a ball, trying to protect her face with her other arm instead, trying to catch her breath, but she couldn't. She screamed, but no sound came out – all that passed her lips were bubbles of blood.

Overhead the leading plane was coming in again, ready to rip her into gobbets of bloody flesh with the next attack –

That was when Karl decided to end things.

"Cease fire!" he yelled as he ran forward, facing the plane as he put his body between it and Seven. The lemurs were yelling something at him, but he couldn't hear it over the noise of the engine – they were probably cursing him, but not so bitterly as he cursed himself and whatever it was that made him do this when he should've been fighting her.

The plane waved off. For a moment everything was silent.

Nobody shot. Nobody spoke. Then Seven staggered toward him, shaking all over, eyes wide and terrified. Her mouth, one side of her face, and one paw were thickly covered with blood. Faint with pain and loss of blood she collapsed into his arms.

"Yasu…!" Karl held her close, and when he turned to face his three allies again, his eyes were suddenly blazing with anger. "That wasn't part of the deal, Julien! This was meant to be a duel in the knowledge of magic, not a military campaign – it was my challenge, and I could've very well finished this on my own! If I had wanted the support of your killing machines, I would've asked for it, fool!"

Then he waved his wand one final time, performing the very same spell Julien had ever seen him do, a long time ago in his bedroom – for a moment things went dark and then grew bright again, and the three lemurs found themselves alone in the destroyed water park.

The witch and the fanaloka were gone.

Julien, Maurice, and Clover stared at the spot where the two opponents had vanished, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Then they got to their feet, brushing dust off their fur.

"What now?! Where did they go?" Julien asked, "– Did Karl win? He won, right?"

Maurice shrugged, shaking ashes out of his tail. "I don't know. I sure hope so!"

– They turned their gazes up at the four aircrafts in the sky, watching as they began to descend, regrouped in a goose formation, their perfect synchronization in the air being absolutely impressive. The sight of the mighty war machines was both disturbing yet relieving at the same time – even though they weren't quite sure what to make of that surprising end of the duel, they were convinced that their appearance had protected them from the evil witch and saved Karl's life… regardless of what the fanaloka himself was thinking about it.

"Clover, I didn't know we had aerial support added as additional force to the Ringtail Guard," Julien said with surprise, but his bodyguard shook her head.

"We don't. Those planes aren't ours."

"Then who –?"

His voice was drowned out by the sound of the engines as the four aircrafts were coming in close. Precisely at the same time, only inches away from each other, they settled down right there in the canyon, the lead bomber a little ahead of the others – and the three lemurs almost shouted out with joy when they recognized the New York license plate under the jet fighter's nose.