Author's Note: This is Crystal from Abracadabra Doo, not Alien Invaders.

Part 25: A Magical Reunion

Madelyn clasped her hand into a fist and snuffed out the fireball as her door opened. She had been practicing for close to four months now and had mastered generating and dissipating fire. Ice, of course, still presented problems, particularly getting rid of it.

Madelyn opened the door to see Maggie leaning against the hallway wall arms crossed. She breathed a sigh of relief. Maggie was the only one who knew about her powers so far. She had been about ready to tell Velma when she had been taken, but no one else.

"What is it?"

"They want to see you. The people that came here with my dad, they want to talk to you and the Wilcox sisters."

"About what?"

Maggie tilted her head. "My best guess," she jerked a finger at Madelyn's closed fist, "that."

Madelyn nodded and put her shoes on to follow Maggie downstairs. At the front of the house there was a car waiting. Madelyn's parents and the Wilcox family were there, as well as Detective Rogers.

Detective Rogers drove them into Old Coolsville and they were led into the Griffin House. Two people greeted them there. One was a burly man with long blond hair tied back in a ponytail. The other was a petit woman with coffee colored skin and flowing brown hair. They both nodded happily at Madelyn and the Wilcox sisters as they entered. Maggie hung back, her father's hand on her shoulder.

"Greetings children" the woman said. "My name is Crystal. I'm… well, this is somewhat hard to explain. I'm sure you all remember your experiences back in March. There were obviously some vagaries about exactly why you were taken. We'd like to clear those up. To put it bluntly," Crystal held her palm out and a plume of fire erupted above it, "you're witches."

"That's total bullsh…" Mister Wilcox began before Madelyn stepped forward.

"I was right." She was beaming ear to ear. She opened up her palm and generated a ball of ice."

Detective Rogers smirked. "Believe them now."

The woman kneeled down by Madelyn and gently took the ice into her own hand. She smiled at Madelyn and then shut her hand, making the ball disappear. Madelyn's eyes went wide and she let out a little laugh.

"You have to teach me how to do that."

"We will" the blond man said. Then he raised his hand in introduction. "Marlon Merlyn. I'm also with the Knights here. We've brought you because there are some aspects to being a witch that need to be addressed. It's best that we do that with you families present. In the end you will be offered a chance to train with us. It's not a recruitment, and you're not even required to join the Order, but nobody knows what it's like to be alone more than a witch, and we'd like to bring you together just to demonstrate to you that you're not alone." With that, Merlyn whistled and a young boy came running into the room.

He was Madelyn and Maggie's age, with messy black hair and dark skin. He was still wearing the same hoodie that he had been back in March, but now looked well fed and stronger than when Madelyn had last seen him.

"Fernando" Madelyn greeted.

"Doe Eyes" Fernando said smiling. "Did you know that we're witches?"

"I had gotten it yeah" she nodded.

"Fernando has been training with us since March. We thought it might be good for you to talk to one of our apprentices as assurance that we are not brainwashing your kids" Crystal said. "I know when the Order first came knocking at my door, when I was fifteen, my parents thought it was a cult."

The families were led into the sitting room and through a wardrobe that somehow led them to a monastery in somewhere very cold. Everyone except Maggie and her father, who hung back in the house.

They were taken to a meeting room and put through what could best be described as orientation. Madelyn hung on every word as Marlon and Crystal explained how their powers would grow, how they could come here to train. Then they got to the part about living longer, about how Vincent, their leader, was over a hundred and how they would reach that age as well. That left them all in a bit of a shock.

By the meeting's end everyone had at least been convinced that witches were real. There had been no commitments to the Order yet, though Madelyn's parents were at least seriously considering it, talking between themselves like they were debating whether or not to send her to a particular school.

Maggie came in a few minutes after the presentation, when Madelyn was sitting in the now empty meeting room in the monastery in the wardrobe. They had been told that it would be best for them to stay there while the current crisis was being resolved, apparently one of the other children from the incident in March had already been kidnapped and they were worried for the rest.

"So," Maggie said, "you're a witch."

"The man seemed to prefer warlock, but yeah. I'm a super long lived, not fully human, magic conductor…" she paused for a moment, "at least that was the gist of it. What about you?"

"Oh, I'm a werewolf."

Madelyn's eyes went wide and her head was physically taken aback a few inches. A ball of fire spontaneously erupted in her hand and sparked onto the table. She frantically generated ice balls, tossing them at the table until it resembled a model of the snowy peaks outside.

"What?"

"Yeah," Maggie nodded, "apparently when I grow up, my mom might have to bite me and turn me into some kind of reasonably long lived werewolf superhero."

"Alright," Madelyn nodded, "yours is better."