Author's Note: An important announcement: I know it doesn't look like it, but I did have a plan when I started this, a Beginning and a Middle and a End, the problem is I realized that end was terrible, so now I need to come up with another end, but I got a few weeks to think about that. In any case, Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!
Chapter 38: What have you been doing Smok?
Ginger was using a habachi grill that she found in the mall to grill burger patties, a wide variety of individuals that looked mismatched and very much in the mood to be returned back to normal were lined up in front of her impatiently tapping their feet.
"Are you sure this is gonna work?" Apple asked looking down at the spatula like wand that Ginger was was using to barbecue, grilling magic circles directly onto the burgers.
"Depends on how much we trust this doctor Konigan." Ginger replied as she began putting burger meat on buns.
"One way to find out." Ramona said as she grabbed two of the burgers and walked over to a huge white Gigan wolf that someone had taken the liberty of chaining down to the malls support pillars while she snapped at various classmates. "Eat it and like it you colossal pain in my Butt!"
Ramona grabbed the upper jaw as the wolf tried to bite her and stomped down on the other before chucking one of the burgers down her throat and eating the other. Muted Rainbow colored magic smoke came out of their bodies and sparked between the two of them. Soon, the rabbit ears that were on top of Ramona's head vanished in a flash of smoke, and were replaced with Ramona's standard wolf ears. The person/large wolf type creature who was unfortunate enough to trade forms with her on the other hand vanished in a ball of dark rainbow and was replaced by the familiar form of Bunny Blanc, who for some odd reason spat out a pocket watch.
"Thanks Ramona." Bunny stated while lying motionless on the floor.
"Well that worked." Ramona commented blandly.
As if that was some kind of cue, the various students all rushed towards the grill at once all very much eager to get turned back to normal. Suddenly a blast of explosive magic went off above everyone's heads, prompting them to spin around to their supervisors, and more specifically, a certain mirror.
"Find whoever the heck you are going to switch with and pair off with them. This is not a free for all!" The various students seemed to ignore the mirror, so she decided to remind them of whom they were speaking to. She whipped out one of her blasting wands and fired at the ground off to the side of Ginger creating a small explosion. "Did I not make myself clear earlier? LINE UP!" The students in question obediently lined up in front of Ginger's habachi but were stopped by Schlechtester and a magical barrier. "This is a treatment not a shopping mall, we will make sure that each of you receive your original features, not some idealized version of yourself!" The Mirror soon began using the student roster to sort out who was really what.
"This looks like it will take a while." Ginger noted with a cringe.
It was Ginger's proposal that they start by sorting out the experienced magic users, not only a sizable asset when fighting against the Jabberwocky, but they could in turn use the information in the book to turn more people back to normal. Aside from Ginger, Bunny and Ramona Faybelle and Farrah had switched back with Ashlyn's step sisters, Mrs. Yaga and the White Queen had been switched around as well and now largely thanks to Ramona's brute force approach Kitty and Cerise were both now back to normal as well.
"Well we have our trackers, our wonderlanders, hero's and villains. What do we do now?" Ramona asked cocking a brow to the teachers.
"This came off of the Jabberwocky during the last fight." Schleschtester stated throwing a rainbow colored dragon scale at Ramona's feet. "Find it."
"I'll stay behind and keep working on getting everyone back to normal." Ginger stated one hand in the air. "Before you leave I can make up some buffing food to enhance Stamina, strength and speed."
"Good plan." Mrs. Yaga noted that in spite of the readily available options laid out before them neither Lizzie or Daring had taken the liberty of changing back to their normal selves. "You two are good as you are?"
"Pfft." Lizzie scoffed at the notion. "I've been fooling around with Riddlish magic ever since I was a small child. Me and my friends use to switch bits of ourselves around all the time just for the heck of it." Apple noted that Lizzie had a long and interesting life for a teenager.
"You didn't know, or you didn't ask?" Apple asked prompting Lizzie to look at her strangely. "I've... had some experience with ignorance recently. There's a difference between not seeing it, and choosing to ignore it."
Lizzie was aware that Riddlish wasn't just random all along, Riddlish didn't just protect the Jabberwocky's it also kept unwanted visitors away as well, of course the method to cure or immunize themselves wouldn't become common knowledge, unlike Apple she could keep a secret.
"Ginger dear, when this is all over, I'm going to need that book if you wouldn't mind." Lizzie stated in a scarily polite tone of voice.
"I haven't been able to find my other half. Anyway Alistair's knack turned out to be pretty handy, I figure I can use it to drop something heavy on top of that thing during the fight." The other's gave a serious look to Daring, he looked awfully big of himself for someone who had to get Mira to put him back together again, but decided to drop the matter, as long as they had someone to do the real Heavy lifting around there then they should be good.
"I've got a few ideas about what to do about that big ugly jerk." Faybelle said idly petting a combination Halberd and staff that she was so fond of. "Besides, I have to give my thesis for Evil Spells."
"Anything we have to worry about?" Mrs. Yaga asked cocking a brow at Faybelle.
"Nothing that me, Ginger and Apple can't handle." Faybelle stated with a devious smirk.
"Hmm. A Ritual spell eh?" Mrs. Yaga stated once again wrinkled fingers holding onto her chin.
Ritual Magic is typically used for one of two reasons. Either the spell was of the level that it required multiple people to accomplish, or it used multiple different and unrelated things in concert with each other to accomplish it's goal.
"I don't have any formal training in Magic Faybelle." Apple was quick to point out the short comings here. "And I doubt that I'll be able to contribute much to whatever your planning on doing."
"No but I will." Mira, still in a masculine form, stated stepping forward.
"Are you going to be okay Mira? Did your magic get screwed up by the Jabberwocky too?" Apple asked looking at the male Mira standing before her.
"It altered it, it didn't render it unusable." Mira explained shrugging her shoulders. "Simply put, male and Female magi are fundamentally different. A female possesses more flexibility with their magic, allowing them access a greater number and variety of knacks. Males on the other hand usually have more power to work with." Of course because they lack that flexibility most boys aren't able to make the cut. Which is part of the reason why Hopper was effectively the only boy showing up to Mrs. Yaga's class. Even then Hopper lacked the formal training and conditioning in magic which would draw out his full capacity, so thus Raven was the one with the highest capacity in the entire class. "Even if I don't have the flexibility I use to, in Trade I've become a generator of ludicrous amounts of power for it."
Faybelle shrugged her shoulders while leading the group outside, she explained to Ginger what she needed her to do.
"Alright Faybelle, I hope this works." Soon the cook was on all fours. Ginger could sense them deep, under ground, officially her knack was registered as cooking but a deeper look revealed other information, with fire and necromancy as removed knacks. That is what Ginger was on all fours looking for right now. It was a forest, animals die, are eaten, occasionally they rot away, but all of them end up in the ground being fed upon by the plants above. But in this forest, the animals have great magical power. "I can feel them, but they're down deep, tangled with the roots." Ginger explained taking a deep breath. "I can't get them out on my own."
"That's part of the idea." Faybelle stepped up this time. The magical forest was called that for a reason, the trees were a mixture of Apple, Ash, Beech, Birch, Cherry, Elder, Elm, Hawthorn, Oak, Pear, Rowan, Sycamore, Willow and Yew as well as various vines Ivy, Holly and Mistle toe. All of these were the woods and plants deemed most suitable for making wands, staffs and other types of magic tools, in fact much of the school's frame work was built using wood from this forest, transforming it into a powerful conductor of Magical power. These trees that were top grade material for the purpose of producing magical tools were entangled with the bodies of creatures that magic was second nature. "And here we go." With a mighty rumble the bones of the long dead were ripped to the surface by roots and vines, the wood grew around the bones and were wrapped in vines as a type of pseudo muscle. A bear, a dear and a griffin made out of wood. "The term is called Archespore, Undead reanimated from corpses that are being fed upon by plants resulting in a strange mutated hybrid of both. Mother uses creatures similar to these as guard dogs back home. In this case, both the animals and the plants are already magical in nature." Faybelle climbed on top of the dear pulling Ginger onto it's back as well. "Two for Evil Spells for both me and Ginger, and one for our Magicology assignment in Ritual magic that you are doubtlessly planning to assign us."
"Snaha!" Mrs. Yaga snorted out a laugh at Faybelle's explanation. "Have I really grown that predictable?" Mrs. Yaga asked cocking a grin with crooked teeth.
"What? Predictable you?" Faybelle asked in mock shock. "I mean, who in all of Ever After could have predicted mwah being assigned such simple tasks for her classes."
"Actually." Ginger stated raising her hand. "I happen to like the classes. Except Evil Spells, thanks Faybelle for including me in this, I don't really have the malevolence for this kind of thing."
"Not a problem old friend. Though seeing your distaste for the undead we must instead rely on our princess for this undead parade." Faybelle explained gesturing to Apple.
"Alright then." Apple grabbed hold of leafy feathers and pulled herself on top of the back of the griffin creature. "I've never worked with Undead animals before." Apple commented patting down the feathers\leafs of the beast's mane. "Excuse me." To Apple's polite inquiry the bird/cat/plant thing turned a single amber eye to face the young princess in question. "There's a dangerous dragon in the forest, do you think that you and your ah... friends here can help us?" The Amber eyed tree\bird\lion looked over to the other two animals which now had three magi and a queen climbing onto their backs, in addition to a fairy fluttering in the air and Cerise, Daring and Lizzie were getting onto Ramona's back. The leafy bird head turned back around to face Apple and nodded it's head. "Alright, I can scout from above." Apple turned around to face Mira and Schlechtester.
"Mira, Shlee-Schech, Mrs. Shards." Apple stated eventually giving up on saying the Mirror's first name. "The two of you aren't coming?"
"Mira bound me directly to the school." The mirror in question stated narrowing a glare at her daughter. "I can't break the link without undoing the glamour charm which grants me mobility. Evidently she is conspiring to ensure I don't attempt to grab my quote on quote niece and bring her back home. I've been worn thin just by coming out here."
"Even as a Warlock my services are better served guarding the school. If the Jabberwocky, or any of the by products of it's presence, comes back here the students will be at risk once more, we need the extra help to chase them off." Mira stated adjusting his glasses.
"Good luck." Apple stated before her leafy mount took off through the air.
"That's what I should be telling you." Mira stated turning back to the school.
Morgan looked down at the leafy creature Faybelle had whipped up and to which Apple was now riding. One of the side effects of binding her old mirror to the school was that the glamour charm which held over sized hunk of glass together also applied to the school now. Thus even though the Girl's dorm hadn't been fixed yet, the school itself had managed to pull itself back together again just as she is one to do. For now though there was the matter of the obscuris to deal with.
"As they say..." Morgan formed a fist with her hand and a large amount of dark black smoke came out of her hand while her eyes glowed a deep red. "The cursed, attracts the cursed."
The Obscuris suddenly arced through the sky and changed directions back to the school. The Giant swirling mass of darkness crashed through the roof of the school's auditorium, Morgan continuous blasted at the thing with a stave keeping it inside of the auditorium before she herself jumped down inside. A single wave of the stave and Morgan laced the entire room with barriers, keeping the destructive ball of black magic inside the building, the barriers causing it to pin ball about as it looked for the means of escape or attempted to make one.
"Your suffering will end soon enough." Morgan got her bag out and prepared a number of sinister looking things, including what looked like a bow with heart shaped arrows inside. "Hopefully, I'll only have to suppress you." Morgan notched the bow and fired exploding arrows at the Obscuris.
Apple was joined by Mrs. Shard's new pet in the, having taken the form of a phoenix as she selectively lit parts of the forest on fire. The idea here is that if the flames came in contact with the Jabberwocky they would either spontaneously freeze over or be booted off to somewhere else, based on what they learned from Morgan's book anyway. However it seemed largely unnecessary, as Apple received a text from Ramona who was on the ground with a ominous three word sentence: 'Found it's nest.' Evidently tracking down Rarmona was a lot easier then trying to find the Jabberwocky. It helped that she was broadcasting her position.
"You found it's nest?" Apple asked sounding concerned. "It has a nest?" Nest = young = mother = another dragon in Apple's mindset.
"The bugger looks like it ripped a bunch of trees right out of the ground and piled them on top of one another." Ramona explained looking around and seeing the holes that were left in the ground from something ripping out several trees.
"Lizzie, I suspect I will regret asking..." Apple stated in a depressed tone of voice.
"Some do, some don't, as is the lot with Riddlish." Lizzie stated crossing her arms.
"Well, the Headmaster said there hasn't been a dragon on the campus grounds since Nevermore's grand daddy Smok. Well except for..." As Apple said that a familiar deep grumbling growl echoed from the pile of wood in front of them.
"No-o..." Daring stated fearfully stepping backwards. At the same time, the ground started shaking, part of the nest collapsed in on itself, but in a burst of flame the wood chunks were blown off and out wreathed in flame was a familiar giant black dragon. "God Mother No!"
Nevermore leveled a contemptuous glare down at those who were disturbing her territory, snorting a puff of steam in their faces. Someone behind Apple pushed her forward, Apple took the liberty of shooting Lizzie a glare before she walked over to the supersized Nevermore.
"Easy there girl..." Apple placed her hand on the tip of the dragon's snout. "We're not here to hurt you." As if asking 'you think you can' a light glow came from the dragon's mouth, indicating that a bolt of fire breath was getting ready to turn loose, and at point blank range no less. "Nevermore, it's me Apple. Don't you recognize me?" The jaws that were humming with purple light snapped shut, Apple's hair swayed a couple of times indicating Nevermore sucking air through her nostrils sniffing her. "That's right you do remember me don't you?" As if dismissing Apple's presence Nevermore turned her head and released a low growl, eyes locked onto Daring who was trying very hard not to draw the sword and shield he was keeping on his person.
"Great. She remembers me as well." Daring suddenly realized that he wished he had gotten Dexter's 'swooning vision' That managed to fell the beast in one hit back on day one, until he remember the secondary eyelids that acted as sunglasses, and he realized that he was very well off with the power to get very far away very fast.
As if she were reading his thoughts, Nevermore slammed her foot down in front of the group forcing them to back away.
"Everyone! Get away from her nest!" Following Apple's command everyone back away from the nest a good distance.
Nevermore took her eyes off of the group when she looked up to the air at the sound of screeching, and was soon greeted by a phoenix who landed down in front of the group. Nevermore's initial reaction was hostility, then confusion as she looked at this new arrival with her head turning off to the side.
"Ah Apple, is she okay?" Faybelle asked as she nervously looked between the two individuals.
"I'm not sure... I think they might know each other." Apple stated as she confusedly looked between the two of them.
While Apple was thinking about that, a rainbow blast came off from the side and struck the phoenix with enough force to send it clear off to the side, not only that but the blast of magic threw her into reverse as well, turning it into a ice phoenix that shattered on the tree line.
"Ouch!" Hearing that familiar voice, Apple rushed over to the giant pile of ice that was the bird that just kept Nevermore from frying them and started sorting through the broken ice. She had seen better days since coming to this school, the least of which she didn't have a wing made out of ice before in place of a arm, also she usually isn't butt naked either. "Hey Apple." Raven said awkwardly, before her pale and cold flesh immediately reddened when she saw her current state of dress. "I guess this is pretty awkward isn't it?" Flesh that reddened even deeper when Daring came over to investigate and saw her, causing Raven to move her wing to cover as much of herself as possible.
"Daring!" Apple snapped immediately realizing this situation. "Give Raven your..."
Jacket, is what Apple was going to say. Then she saw where the rainbow blast came from, the Jabberwocky was back, carrying in it's jaws a dumpster full of old cafeteria food, not that was the most concerning thing about it right now, no those were big blue slitted eyes narrowing a glare at them. Nevermore, the lizardly saint that she is, moved in front of the Jabberwocky though apparently not to fight. As if inspecting the contents of his catch Nevermore sniff the dumpster before battering it away with her tail and snarling angrily.
"She prefers fresh food." Raven commented watching the interactions between the two of them.
"Raven, that doesn't make me feel better." Daring stated the look on his face that of a mouse that just spotted a two angry cats fighting over him. "I wouldn't worry about it." Raven commented waving a non transformed arm.
"What do you mean Raven?" Apple asked as she made a effort to cloth Raven's awkwardly transformed body in Daring's Book Ball Jacket.
"You don't know much about dragons do you?" Raven asked wrapping Daring's jacket around her waist while her wing continued to cover up the rest of her.
"I haven't found any books about them in the library. Why what's happening?" Apple asked nervously.
"Lemme put it to yah this way. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Nevermore with the baby carriage..." As if finally having enough of her incompetent mate, Nevermore roared at him fire, teeth, fire et all. "Then comes divorce, ugly, messy, divorce." Raven stated cringing at what was about to happen.
Review Section:
DJ: Yah they went there. But as you can see Nevermore's loyalty isn't something so half baked.
JanessaVR: Yah I could see how that might make for bad leadership, if Mira, a lady whose specialty is in healing magic wasn't standing right there.
Aya Rose: I understand if you don't want to keep reading, but your criticisms have been noted for me.
Wade: Does she know more, or do they know more and not telling anyone?
Charlie: The Specialist is Morgan, she has a short fuse, and she has left them with everything they need to help themselves, her concern is the Obscuris.