Rai was exhausted, her and M'gann had just talked for a while, mostly about dealing with hot headed boys. She kind of felt bad for M'gann. Rai was just roommates with Will, she couldn't imagine being bound to a relationship with someone who could pick a fight right off the bat. Then again, she realized people and demons like Rai did things differently. Wrath demons and love didn't mix well, especially not for the demon.
Deimos meanwhile had found a new friend. Zatana had noticed him idley reading one of his spellbooks and then she noticed the wings before realizing those was the half-dragon mage she'd been told of.
"So, you do the say the words backwards thing? Yike the tongue twisters." Deimos laughs turning the page in his book.
"Yeah, not terrible once you get the hang of it. So you don't have to use any kind of verbal commands?" Zatana asks, intrigued.
"Sometimes. There's a bunch of quick cast spells I can do off the top of my head. Dragons are born with innate magical ability. So casting things like giant balls of I can a few were words are needed or else…. You know. Magic explosions." Deimos sheepishly hums that last bit. Magic explosions where a thing, but only for massive spells that were done either incorrectly or too quickly.
"That's pretty cool. So… you into devine magic?" The magician noticed the pages of the books Deimos was focusing on were primarily centered around that.
"Ah working on a project for a friend. I usually use lunar magic. She has some… unpredictable tendencies." Deimos vents. He'd been semi helpful with Calypso. But they were running out of time. He had to prove her usefulness soon if they wanted to keep her and they were still working on basics! In Calypso's defense, her magic she seemed to have innate, was incredibly rare and difficult to start with, but he doubted anyone would understand.
Zatana hums in thought as her eyes trace Deimos's line of vision to Calypso, who'd made friends with Beast Boy and was currently throwing a ball for him to catch in multiple animal forms. First was a dog, then a horse, then a giraffe, and then some kind of bird. Either way, the fawn was more than amused.
"Her? Divine magic, on her? Surprise. Perhaps a bit more practice will help. What kind of issues are we talking about." Zatana grew slightly more concerned. Divine magic, handled poorly could do damage on massive scales. The difference between saving a life and leveling a building was just one misplaced thought. That both interested and terrified her.
"I could help. Theres two training rooms, me and you both should be able to keep things contained."
"Sounds like fun! Hey Calypso. Zatana wants to help with the magic stuff!" Deimos calls.
The fawn looks up from her game with beast boy and waves bye as she comes to see what they wanted with her.
XXXX
Meanwhile Rai's body cringed, someone was making a summons. However it wasn't a physical summons, it was just a mental link summons. A physical summons required a demon to actually go to the summoner. It required a long ritual, usually involving the remains of their human body or a personal object. Mental link summons were strictly from other demons and was similar to a phone call that rang in the demon's head until he or she answered the summons.
Rai gets up, excusing herself to find a restroom, waltzing in irritably and staring into the mirror. Upon muttering something in a demonic tongue the mirror began to cloud and a face appeared. Isroh.
"You know I hate summons." Rai growls. The smog in the mirror cleared showing Isroh, sitting on his couch in his living room.
"I know, I know. I'm so sorry. But I had an emergency come up." Isroh waves his hands. His face showed pure stress and worry.
"Alright. I can forgive. Spill."
Isroh huffs, standing to pace nervously. "A human's been mauled. All signs point to etivian attack."
Rai face fell, all anger from getting summoned falling away as she remembered telling Lydia to go straight to Isroh. Apparently she didn't. The timeline was too perfect, she'd have had plenty of time to get over the growing pains of transformation. Now she was no doubt on a hunt for blood.
"Jesus. I told her to come to you after getting caught by the hunters. I assumed she came." The horseman shakes her head.
"Never did. I assumed she'd gotten killed in the fight." Isroh defends.
This was the worst possible scenario. Rai would have to hunt her down again next chance she got. And chances are, Lydia would be far less willing to obey simple commands now that she'd won her first hunt. "What did you do with the body?"
"We cleaned up the mess, being cremated as we speak. If she kills too many people though the secrets out and both of us are in trouble. I'm busy keeping up the front here that nothing's wrong, but I can't hold it up too much longer."
Rai was at a loss. Likely this time finding her wouldn't be as simple as asking her to follow. There'd likely be a nasty fight. The horseman could fight, but it wasn't optimal, she'd need help.
"I can't do it alone." Rai leans forward onto the counter.
"What about Will? He knows now, doesn't he? Would he be willing to help?" Isroh asks, rather desperate to get this situation under control. Rai was also beginning to get a bit stressed from the idea of a bloodthirsty beast running loose with no other way to stop it than to kill it herself. Leaving her to the demon hunters was an option, but doing that had it's own risks. If she knew them, they'd attempt to use her to find the other demons around the city. They tried to kill Rai because she was a devil and an immediate threat. Capturing and extracting information out of Lydia would be childs play.
"I'll have to see. If not. I'm going to have to attempt it alone." Rai was leaning on the counter, head hanging in both stress and pain.
"If she gets away again, we're done. This is the last chance."
"I'll ask him."
XXXXX
Calypso nervously examines the room as she walks in.
"So… explain the idea again?"
" Zatana here is going to be our mitigator. For if things go south. But she's also going to watch for you to see what keeps going wrong." Deimos explains as Zatana held back to close and lock the door to ensure the room as sealed off in case of an accident.
"I get that part. I'm more concerned with the other bit." The fawn's ears twitch in slight fear.
"I'm going to try to hit you with spells and your going to block them. Maybe even hit me back." Deimos shrugs, leaning on a crutch.
"Yeah. I have some concerns." The fawn was a bit scared of the idea of Deimos actively trying to hit her with things. He was a dragon. If he hit her hard enough there was a risk of getting badly hurt.
"I won't hit you with anything bad. Here." Deimos conjures a handful of shimmering sparks at his fingertips. He moves closer letting them arc over to Calypso, who'd visibly flinched untill she was hit. She immediately started laughing at the feeling of the static dancing over her skin, tickling her.
"See? Not bad." The dragon hums, hobbling back and waiting until Calypso was ready to fight.
Zatana on the other hand was impressed with Deimos's negotiation skills. He was able to talk her into it so easily, it was rather sweet in her opinion. She perks as the half-dragon subtly hints they were starting, magic ready to stop any form of accident in its tracks.
Calypso readies herself ivory markings on her body flaring to life, her horns shimmering as her usual glassy orbs began to form and move around her like floating water droplets.
"Got those up faster than usual." Deimos comments.
"Been practicing by myself." The fawn chirps, proud of her accomplishment. Might not have seemed like much of an improvement, but any little bit was enough to make her happy.
Deimos slowly moved, giving Calypso time to react, sparks jumping at the fawn. She was confused, unaware of how to block it. Sure enough she was hit with the tickling static, but managed to keep her orbs up.
"Um. Try that again? Maybe with a little more doing stuff this time?"
"Right. I just don't know if I can block with magic." Calypso shrugs, watching her orbs float around her absently.
"Try moving one of those balls in the way." Zatana suggested.
"I'm scared to make them angry." The fawn mutters shamefully.
Zatana laughs under her breath for a second before composing herself in order to actually be constructive.
"Well we won't know until we try." She offers, still internally laughing at the idea of making magic 'angry'. "Besides. I'm here incase they do get mad."
Calypso shifts, straightening then letting out a calming breath, readying herself for another attack. Arcs of electricity lunged at her, she quickly moves a mirror-orb into its path and surprisingly it worked. The sparks completely nullified in its wake, sending of flecks of light in dying exasperation. She examines her orbs, noticing that cracks along it's surface appeared in almost the same pattern the electricity has resembled.
"Nice." Deimos smiles as he readies to fire again.
Calypso move back, maneuvering the same ball to intercept the shock, cracking it further. This kept up again and again until eventually Calypso's magic shuddered. The orb suddenly refused to work for her, cracks splitting, a bright white light shining and illuminating the room.
The fawn panics, steping back from it as it begins to errupt.
"Zatana!" Deimos calls, but the sorceress was already on it.
"Naitnoc!" She shouts, a veil of shadows wrapping itself around the shimmering light to engulf it's chaotic undoing into nothing more than a tired groan.
"Whoops."Calypso meekly hums.
"Nah, all is good. Maybe just don't use the same orb over and over again for blocking." Deimos suggests, noticing the other two orbs floating around unharmed. The fawn was listening but multitasking on creating another orb to replace the demolished one.
"Right."
"That explosion was pretty nasty. Maybe cracked orbs can be weaponized." Zatana thinks out loud, impressed with how much effort it took to fully contain that blast.
"I might try that. Have a target? I don't feel okay throwing that at Deimos." Calypso hums, avoiding any and all eye contact.
"I can block anything, but if it makes you feel any better you can fire at a training dummy." Deimos shrugs, deciding not to make her do anything she didn't want to.
"Training dummy. Got it." The magician hits a switch by the door revealing a place in the floor that quickly separated and a crash dummy erects itself.
"Go ahead. Have at it." Deimos readies to fire another shock in hopes to crack an orb.
Calypso quickly maneuvers, blocking it off and hearing the distinct sound of a cracking mirror. One orb cracked, the other two were pristine and reflective.
She struggles to aim but with a slight hand gesture a unharmed orb was sent flying, missing the dummy entirely and slapping against the wall. It shattered, arcs of arcane light shimmering off in multiple directions like deadly glitter, cracking as it diminishes.
"Oh dang." Calypso huffs, displeased with missing.
"Nah try again." Deimos shrugs, trying to keep her from discouragement.
Zatana, meanwhile was examining the nasty scorch marks now singed into the wall. She was curious as to what that could do to a living person but was concerned about testing that thought.
Calypso was readying herself a second time, trying to judge the difference between her and the dummy before sending another untouched orb flying and striking the target in the left shoulder. The explosion was comparable to the previous one but the dummy was in bad shape. As the fluttering shimmer settled, burn marks showed themselves on the plastic skin blackening it.
The fawn laughed in glee that she'd actually hit something! That was the first time she'd gotten a direct hit with any of her magic abilities. She wasn't concerned with the damage at all, rather she was just happy with hitting anything.
"Alright. Moment of truth." Zatana mentions, thinking up theories as to what might be about to happen.
Readying herself once more, Calypso judges the target. She desperately wanted to hit again but she began to feel drained. She'd kept the orbs constructed for much longer than she ever had before so she'd have to use it quickly before it faded. She quickly let it fly, slamming into the center of the dummy.
The ball shattered in a violent display or arcing light, firing in random directions and spreading the particles everywhere. Calypso flinches, covering her hears to protect them from the loud crackling of shattering mirrors and the high pitched ringing that followed. The crackling should have stopped by now, but instead the particles seemed to be attempting to condense, finding each other and shimmering in unison. A vague threat as the lights began dimming and the bulbs shattered, leaving the room in darkness, only lit by the glimmer around them that was quickly gaining power.
"Um. Guys." Calypso gulps, concerned with both the fact that her target had been obliterated off the stand and was in pieces around them and that she no longer had control of what was happening.
Zatana was about to say something, about to cast a spell, Deimos assumed. But was stuck by an arc of light that lashed from nowhere, burning through the cloth at her shoulder and blackening herskin. Deimos instead worked on containing all the energy, he let darkness swirl and neutralize as much as he could. Deimos struggled to keep it all down but realized the golden shimmer began to condense around Calypso who was panicking. The white runes on her skin glowing brighter and the golden dust seeming to adhere to her skin.
She took some deep breaths as Deimos worked to pull the magical veil off her as Zatana recovered from the painful shock.
"Calypso. Calm down. You're bringing it on yourself." Zatana blurts as the fawn just continues struggling against her own arcane abilities.
The arcane fawn's breath began to settle as she opened her eyes, taking in the sight around her. It didn't burn her, rather felt cool as the golden sparkle began to condense onto her like rain settling after a violent storm. It was kind of enchanting and calming. She knew she was in the eye of a deadly maelstrom, but she felt oddly relaxed. As if the halo of light was cradling her, calling her. Memories that weren't hers flooding her mind. Or where they? Falling like an asteroid and being immediately swallowed by water and brought out of such bliss.
The fact it was all drawn to Calypso made both Deimos and Zatana nervous. It'd burned them, they feared it'd do the same to her.
"It's like it has a mind of it's own." Deimos huffs, unsure of exactly what he was witnessing.
Zatana had seen a copious amount of wild magic but she'd never seen anything like this.
"I does. And we have to stop it." She readies herself. "cigam yfilluN"
Darkness enswarms the room, engulfing the cocoon of radiance and swallowing it whole like a starving beast. Prying Calypso's own magic off her, much to her dismay. It was over, with every last spark dead or dying and both Deimos and Zatana visibly exhausted from having to contain such excessive amounts of magic.
"Aw man." Calypso groans, a bit upset that just as she enjoyed her magic it was disposed of.
" 'aw man'? What do you mean 'aw man'? That was insane?" Deimos shakes his head, baffled at the idea of Calypso enjoying herself with all that. "It didn't hurt you did it?"
"No. I actually feel fine. Once I stopped being scared of it, it felt kind of good." The fawn admits, her ears twitching.
"Calypso! Your hair!" Zatana gasps, noticing the subtle, yet strange change.
The fawn quickly finds a lock of her own hair to examine, bringing it infront of her own eyes. Where her hair was naturally slick ivory that glided through one's hands like soft silk, they now curled towards the ends in a soft bounce. There were small glints of shimmering gold with the new twist and turns, gleaming like a golden geode from polished stone.