Sorry this took so long. Got a little bit blocked for a while, had to have dental surgery, and then was in the hospital...meeting my new niece! XD Well, here it is. And there should be a steady flow of updates from here on out until at least the end of the year (I've been writing ahead). So wish me luck!

Chapter 11

The gang was collected in the lobby of the tower, trying to tend to each other. Not going so well.

"That's it," said Wendy, "It's over." She looked at her watch. "10:22! I'm calling it!"

Lexi groaned. "Wendy, there's gotta be a way around this—"

"How? Tech's incorporeal, we can't fight, Elena's bleeding out, Nadine's way too weak, Benny's got a broken wrist, Robert's got a broken arm to go with it, Lucy's beaten and bloody, Rye and Mike are broken and battered, Sarah's lost her internal senses, Jack's a step away from a concussion and a nod away from a coma, and Kelly's 25 degrees away from overheating!"

"Hey, you've still got me and Archer!" spoke up Austin.

"Yeah!" Archer trotted up, "We'll give those two the what-for! HIYA!" He demonstrated his point by kicking the couch. "Oh, my paw! Oh, my paw!" He hopped away from it, favoring his sore paw, only to hit his head on the table. "Oh, my head! Oh, my floppy ears! Oh, my nose! Oh, my tail! Oh, my spleen!"

Austin groaned. "Well, you still have me."

Michael started to get up. "No, I…I can still fight." He stood up and instantly began to lose his footing. "Oh, look at the pretty stars." He fainted into his mother's arms.

Sophie sighed. "Yup, he's out of it." She looked at Ryan. "You don't get up."

Ryan nodded. "Gladly." He then proceeded to snatch his brother's ice pack and hold it to his sore head.

Elena lay on a couch while Ace tried to patch her up. "We can't let…Valentina…and Esmeralda…get to the power…in the royal jewel…" She groaned in pain, clutching her bloody stomach. "We'll never be able to win this battle then."

"Well, we can't win it now," said Jack while Wendy held an ice pack to his traumatized head.

"I hate to say it, but…" Sarah hesitated, "Jack's right." She clutched her throat.

Sophie looked at her. "What's wrong?"

"I never thought I'd say those words. It hurts so much!"

Sophie gave her a look.

Kelly looked at Ryan. "Rye, you're not using that ice pack, are you?"

"Actually, I—" Before Ryan could finish his sentence, Kelly snatched it. "OK."

Kelly started to put it to her head…only to have it burst into flames and disintegrate by her touch. "Oh, COME ON!"

Austin groaned. "Look, I'm sorry, but being dead, I'm always room temperature, so I can tell that it's freezing in here—" He went to adjust the thermostat, only to find… "Why does it say 82?"

"What?" Daniella went over there, leaving Rev with Robert, to find that he was right. "It's way colder in here than that! The A/C must not be running!" She waved her wand to make a thermometer in midair and it showed the real temperature. "It's 46 degrees in here!"

"What?" Wendy cried. She then realized what was going on. "Oh, Kelly, the Scorch Hex is spreading. Now you're sucking all the heat from the air and transferring it straight to you!"

Kelly groaned. "Great. That was the last thing we needed." She placed her head to her hand and instantly jumped back, whimpering and crying out. "I'm even burning myself!"

"Then I would suggest you not touch yourself," Austin said, "As a half-Vampire, you cannot afford to get set on fire."

Kelly groaned. "How are we gonna get rid of these guys? We can't just give up but we can't beat them like this!"

"We could call in for backup?" Lucy suggested weakly.

"Oh, that is—so stupidly simple yet brilliant that I can't believe we didn't think about that," Daniella said. She looked at Lexi. "Well, get on the horn!"

Lexi ran for the conference room. She pulled up a list of allies. "Oh, come on, we've gotta have someone on here in range of us." She skipped over allies on the other planets with that note in mind and started searching over the Acmetropolis area. "Uh…Macy and Brenda! We can easily bring them in. And Chris and some of our old friends from Anasala…oh, yeah. This will work." She quickly started typing up the message to the selected allies. "'We have a situation'…'we need help'…'get here ASAP.'" She hit "send" as fast as she could and then raced back into the lobby. "They should be here any minute."

Suddenly, the electricity flickered and the building shook, tossing everyone against one another if not on the floor or furniture.

"Please tell me that was Karen wanting to enter with a bang," Kelly said.

"I don't think so…" Elena answered.

Daniella thought fast and cast something as fast and silently as she could.

That's when the doors exploded.

There stood Esmeralda and darkened Valentina.

No one was there.

"They sure fled fast for their conditions," Esmeralda commented.

Valentina scoffed. "You're telling me you can't see that?"

"See what?"

"The shroud. The Focus."

Invisible Elena gasped. They already tapped the energy. She can see magic. We are going to die.

"Give me two seconds." Valentina sent out a blast of energy.

Suddenly, everyone in the room was thrown from the spell and against the wall if not simply over the furniture and onto the floor in a heap.

Valentina smirked. "You really thought you guys could hide from us? You think you can sneak up behind me and stab me in the back?"

"That wasn't the plan, but OK."

Suddenly, Valentina lurched forward and fell to the floor. A dagger protruding from her back. She instantly started trying to yank it out.

Esmeralda turned to face the attacker and instantly regretted it. Her arm was now flaming hot. She jumped back to find herself looking at Kelly. Vamp Kelly. "A Vampire fighting for the side of good? Now I've seen everything. How'd I miss that?"

Kelly gave her a look. "Because I'm the half-Vampire fighting for the side of good. That's the Vampire fighting for the side of good."

Esmeralda turned around to see what she was talking about and came face-to-face with Vamp Austin, who instantly punched her in the face to knock her down before she could even blink at this.

Valentina finally yanked out the dagger. Suddenly, she felt a burning sensation in her hand and threw the dagger aside, lodging it in the wall. She looked at her hand to find a burning spell spreading through it.

Austin noticed this. "Uh…Kelly?"

Kelly turned around to find Valentina rushing to wave her hand off. Kelly looked at her own flaming hands to find that they were cooling off. She smiled. Guess there's more than one way to shift this spell. She instantly rushed Valentina and jumped over her, grabbing the dagger from the wall and starting to fight her off with it.

Tech watched this all go down. Then an idea struck him: Maybe I can touch Valentina. After all, I'm a Ghost by Meridian rules and she's from Meridian. I mean, when I was on Meridian, Sophie was able to slap me. Yeah, that's a memory I don't wanna re-conjure.

Valentina then pinned down Kelly, the Scorch Hex having no affect on her. On the contrary, she seemed to be weakening her more.

Worth a shot. Tech jumped her and grabbed her, letting Kelly stab her and let out a little bit more of the spell.

Suddenly, Valentina let loose a burst of energy, knocking Kelly across the room and into Daniella and then pinning Tech to the wall by the throat. "You're gonna wish you never—"

"HEY, VIPER!"

Valentina whirled around to find herself face to face with another female coyote.

"Get your hands off my brother." She sent a stream of dark energy launching at Valentina, throwing her across the room and against Esmeralda.

Tech looked at his sister. "Hey, Nell. Good to see you again."

Nellie smirked. "I could say the same for you. But come on, did you really think I'd miss a good fight?" She then noticed Kelly lying on the floor by Daniella, practically searing the floor where her hands rested. "RITA! GET IN HERE!"

Two more Coyote siblings raced in, one boy and one girl…clumsily running into each other.

Nellie groaned. "Rita, if you would handle the firebird over there…"

The female Coyote named Rita turned to find Kelly getting closer to overheating, melting the floor where she touched it. Rita nodded and raced over to her, sending a wave of ice through her.

Valentina and Esmeralda started to get up only for them to be thrown in separate directions by a sudden gust of wind.

Rita smirked at her brother. "Nice shot, Patrick."

Patrick just nodded.

Valentina suddenly turned snake mode and raced at them, only to be thrown to the ground and pinned there in human form by a shockwave of pain.

Macy Mastermind stood at the door, holding her down. "You guys should really work on your security, huh?"

Wendy smirked. "It's a flaw, deal with it. Oh, and clear the way."

Macy pinned herself to the wall. "What? Why?"

That's when a blonde human girl jumped in and attacked Esmeralda before her feet even touched the floor. Esmeralda recovered fast, but couldn't fight strong enough before she got pinned to the wall with her hands held behind her back.

Jack smiled. "Hey, Brenda. How you been?"

The Slayer smiled back at him. "Same old, same old. Wish I could say the same for you."

"Trust me," Lucy said, "For us? This is the 'same old, same old.'"

Brenda Sanders stifled a giggle.

Esmeralda just growled and sent a wave of magic energy at her.

She was thrown across the room into the wall, practically busting a hole in it.

Esmeralda turned to glare at her, her eyes flashing green again. Then she got a much better look at Austin, who now knelt at Kelly's side as Rita tried to mend the Scorch Hex at least half away. And she saw a soul light on him. No wonder I didn't notice he was a Vampire… She started a spell at him…only to bombarded by a large wave of water.

Christiana Pierce stood at the door, smirking brightly. "I love that power." She looked at Sarah and the others…to discover the predicament that was the cause of their inability to fight back. "What happened to you guys? Did you get hit by a train?"

"Two trains actually," Sarah commented sourly, nodding towards the "trains" named Valentina and Esmeralda.

Esmeralda looked at Valentina. Can you hear me?

Valentina looked at her. The Focus is strong with you. I can hear and project entirely.

Well, in case you haven't noticed, we're getting stomped and I'm still short like ten souls.

Just follow my lead.

Esmeralda nodded.

Valentina started up a spell behind her back…

Daniella looked at Rita. "You're not gonna be able to fix it."

"I have to try," Rita said.

"No, you don't understand. You're just shifting the spell slightly, we need to break it. The only way to do that is to kill Esmeralda."

Rita looked at her, still pressing her power into her niece. "Then we've got a problem."

"Got that right."

Suddenly, they were all thrown back with such force that they landed in the park down the street.

Valentina smirked at them as walked up. "Weak. All of you. You'll never be able to—" Before she could finish her taunts, she was thrown aside and pinned to the ground by a burst of energy.

Kelly looked, even as she felt the Scorch Hex's power pouring back into her full force, and saw a familiar crest shaped like a Dragon with a lightning bolt over it. She smiled. "Took you long enough."

Jupiter stood there and smiled at her. "It's my first time here. Takes a little while to work me up, you know."

That's when Esmeralda stormed up. But they couldn't see her. She hid perfectly behind a building, right where they couldn't spot her.

"Where are the others?" Lexi asked Jupiter.

"They're right behind me, they must've hit a lag in the transport or something," Jupiter answered. But she answered cautiously. Obviously, she was hiding something…

Esmeralda looked over at Valentina, the only one who close enough to the street to see her. Give me five minutes.

Valentina just nodded discreetly in reply.

Esmeralda walked off to an old apartment building. She looked at the door. "Time to test that power." She held out her hand at it and manipulated it to fly off the hinges and across the street. She smirked and stormed in.

Within the next five minutes, several cries of agony came from the building and a splatter of blood streaked across the windows…

Back with the gang, the healthy backup tried to tend to the injured heroes.

Tabitha (who had just arrived with Juniper, Kestrel, Karen, Carmen, Amanda, Saffron, Penelope, Eric, and Joy) was trying to get them prepped for the fight. "We need a Healer, or else we can't get them anywhere close to better."

"The best we've got is me," said Saffron, "And I'm only a quarter Healer. And my grandmother wasn't exactly Florence Nightingale."

"Well, there's gotta be something we can do," Kestrel said, "Otherwise, we're dead."

Suddenly, something blew behind them. Esmeralda stood there, a step away from full power. "Oh no…" She let Valentina loose with a burst a magic manipulation, letting her glare at them in full darkened form. "…you're dead and buried."