yikes I really need to start budgeting my time better because editing always takes me way longer than I expect D: sorry friends! I'll try to get to it sooner next week, I promise ;w;

anyway! enjoy some magic fucking bullshit when they ~finally~ find the genie! ;D

"Hey, genie fucker! Where are you?"

"Judal, there could still be people here," Hakuryuu tries to say, but Judal waves him off. He watches as Judal strides into the park, heedless of danger or anything else. Fine, he'll run the perimeter check while Judal does his own thing. Hakuryuu reaches out with magic, searching. He can feel the comfortable, familiar pulse of life from the grass and trees around him, and he keeps looking. He blocks out Judal as he tries to find anyone else who might be wandering around, and nothing but silence meets him. There aren't even birds or squirrels running around. That can't be good.

He goes to warn Judal and groans. He's already out of sight, of course; he's far too impatient to sit still and wait for anything. "Judal?"

"I'm up!" he says, and Hakuryuu looks up to see him perched on his staff. "I thought I'd get a better view from here."

"You're lucky there's no one else here," he chides. "But there's nothing here, Judal. Not even animals."

He pulls a face. "Yeah, that's bad," he declares, and hops off his staff. He grips it in one hand and drops to the ground, landing in front of Hakuryuu gracefully. "I guess we should be careful."

"That's what I've been trying to say," Hakuryuu says softly. If there's one drawback to becoming more in tune with magic, it's how sensitive it makes him to the flow of energy around him. The lamp is trying desperately to reconnect with its lost genie, and the magic reaching out of it is giving Hakuryuu a headache.

"I know. Man, I hate all these creepy abandoned places we've had to muck around in. Like, it makes it easier to hide whatever magical bullshit mess is going down, but it ends up making it all weird and shit," Judal says, kicking a stone off the path they're following. It sounds hollow as it bounces in the grass, which is unsettling. "Maybe someday I want to be like a badass superhero and save the world when everyone's watching."

"Don't lie. You don't want that much attention."

Judal laughs loudly, clutching his staff to support himself. "Yeah, you're right. I'd have to talk to all those people! Totally gross." Something shuffles through the trees to their left and Judal grins widely. "You ready to kick some ass?"

"I'm not really sure how-"

Judal cackles and launches off an ice spear, splintering trees apart and freezing the area around of it. There's a beat of silence and then a sudden blast that levels the rest of the trees. Judal throws a barrier around them and drags Hakuryuu back. "Found it! Time to go to town!"

Hakuryuu grabs the bag with the lamp in it when Judal drops it to shoot up in the air. He rains down black lightning gleefully, and the whole area resonates with magic. When Judal goes all out, he's an impressive force to experience, but Hakuryuu has other things to focus on: finding a backup solution if Judal's power doesn't solve the problem for them.

There's a rumbling and thick, dark smog spills across the wrecked ground,spiraling up after Judal. He flits away, throwing spells at it the whole time, but his ice spears just sail through the billowing smoke without doing anything to stop it.

For now, Hakuryuu tries to stay out of the way. Judal is distracting the genie; he's bright and loud, and Hakuryuu is going to take advantage of this while he can. It's not like he'll be able to do anything against it if it turns its attention to him, and he can't fly away like Judal can.

He takes the lamp and runs for now, watching the fight in the air. None of Judal's magic seems to be able to hit it though, and the genie doesn't have any interest in taking a more physical form. Why should it? At this rate, Judal is going to tire out before he does any lasting damage, and Doing more than hitting things as hard as possible isn't exactly Judal's strong point. Hakuryuu watches as more spears of ice and energy sail ineffectually through the smoke and decides to figure it out on his own. He's never worked with fog before, but he's been able to affect the microbes in the air. Maybe he can mess with whatever is keeping it in this form.

He doesn't know for sure how magical gases work, but he knows how regular ones do: get them cold enough and they condense back into a more solid form. Maybe he can do something with that. He's watched Judal fling his ice spears around enough to understand the basic concepts of how to make things freeze; this is just on a larger scale, focusing on a creature's magical essence instead of just water in the air. Zagan's wand quivers in his hand as he draws it through the motions, trying to cast his mental net wide enough to ensnare all the smoke. The genie realizes what's happening too late, and the smoke curdles into a twisted, angry form.

Judal whoops happily, and the wind picks up around him. Ice spins into giant dragons that twist around the genie, gnashing at it and freezing bits of it. The genie swats at one with the back of its hand, and it shatters into glittering splinters. The other wraps around its arm, trying to stop it from moving anymore, but it just shakes the attack off and rears back its fist. Judal's so caught up in controlling his spell that he doesn't have time to react as the genie's fist collides with his face. He crumples and falls off his staff, and the staff hangs for a moment before plummeting after him.

Damn it.

Hakuryuu runs, wind and magic on his heels, even though he knows he'll never get under Judal fast enough to catch him. He knows it's stupidly futile, that he won't even be able to do anything, but anger and impulse drives him faster until he hears the wind whistling in his ears as his feet leave the ground in actual, honest-to-god flight that pushes him that last bit he needs, Judal lands on him with a sickening crack that knocks the wind out of him. They go crashing against the ground, and Hakuryuu barely has a chance to cushion their fall with leaves and vines and whatever microbes he can pull out of the air, and they land with less damage than he expected. Hakuryuu gropes Judal ineffectively, and finds that while he isn't moving, he is still breathing. That's good.

Everything aches from the force of catching Judal, but Hakuryuu doesn't think anything is broken. Not in his body, at least. He'll have to check over Judal. The genie is ignoring them for now, probably because they were both incredibly stupid and unlikely to survive. That should buy them a few minutes.

Judal groans. "Shit fucking nipples, everything hurts," he says. His voice is strained but if he's whining that's probably a good sign. "Hakuryuu?"

"Yeah?"

"You're a fucking idiot," he says. "Thanks for saving my sorry ass."

"Please sit still and let me continue to save it," Hakuryuu says, running his hands over Judal lightly. He wishes he could move but he doesn't want to risk breaking anything further, so he'll have to make it work despite the awkward angle. Miraculously, nothing feels broken, just strained and shaken up, and he shakes his head. "I can't believe you didn't break anything."

"I'm pretty much amazing," Judal tells him proudly, wheezing on his next breath. "But also I'm sturdier than your regular fucker, duh. Though-" he says, cutting himself off to try to recover some. "Though are you really sure nothing is broken?"

Hakuryuu nods. "You might have some internal bleeding or something from the impact, but you somehow managed to avoid breaking any bones."

Judal rolls off of him, whining the whole time. "But I'm still in so much pain! This is bullshit."

"You did fall from pretty high up. Internal bleeding would be painful, too," Hakuryuu points out, pushing off the ground delicately. He's sore from Judal landing on him and hitting the ground, but their fall was cushioned pretty well. It could be a lot worse.

"It's still bullshit! I don't like it," he says. Hakuryuu offers him a hand up and Judal takes it, before glancing around. "Where'd my wand end up?"

"I'm not sure. It fell when you did," he says.

Judal groans, ready to run off and look for it. "Of course it did."

Hakuryuu grabs his hand and holds him back. "If you could wait for a minute, I'll see if I can patch you up. I've been practicing."

Judal actually stops, looking surprised and a little touched. "You're too kind." Judal stands still while Hakuryuu runs his hands over him again, trying to knit together every cut and bruise he finds until Judal feels far more whole. It's odd; he's obviously human but healing him takes much less time and energy than expected. It probably has something to do with however he's kept himself alive for this long. He flexes when Hakuryuu finishes and grins. "Shit, you've gotten pretty good at this. Thanks!"

"This doesn't give you an excuse to be more reckless," he chides, but Judal is already gone, off to find his wand and get revenge for being punched to the ground. Hakuryuu has learned his lesson already: be prepared for Judal to fight without holding back, which means being the backup when that bites him in the ass. He dusts himself off and takes off after Judal.

At least the genie is still in physical form. It hasn't figured out how to revert what Hakuryuu did to it, so Judal is able to hit it with magic. Even if it doesn't do much, it's better than nothing. Everything they read warned them that genies are nearly unstoppable once they're loose, and dealing with a corrupted one is even worse. They really needed some sort of plan besides "Judal hits it really hard," but they were both hoping that somehow it would work for them.

There has to be something else they can do. Unfortunately, the middle of a fight is quite possibly the worst time to try to come up with elaborate plans.

Judal almost gets hit again but this time he manages to roll with it and flies under the genie instead, cackling the whole time. He's trying to goad it into going after him even more because he's stupid and reckless, and it's so frustrating, Hakuryuu wants to scream. He's going to tire out long before the genie does. He can watch as Judal's reactions get slower and the genies blows come closer and closer to sending him flying again. Judal zips to and fro, but his movement is jerky, choppy. He's starting to look worn down while the genie seems no worse for wear, but Hakuryuu can feel the beginnings of a plan in the back of his mind. He's okay with Judal being the brute magical strength if it buys him time so he can come up with plans to put it to good use. He remembers a couple different methods of binding genies to items, so at least one of them should work. And if he can do that, he has a one step plan to make it more permanent.

"Judal!" he calls out, and Judal comes spiraling out of the air to land next to him. If only he listened this well regularly.

He wipes some sweat from his face and gives Hakuryuu a tired looking smile. "What's up?"

"I have an idea, but I need to ask you something first," he says, lowering his voice. "Where does the door go, or really anything from that spell, when it vanishes?"

Judal's face twists in confusion as he mulls over his answer. "Nowhere, basically? Why?"

He hasn't picked up on what the plan is yet. Oh, well. Hakuryuu can explain it more simply if he has to. "We should send the lamp there."

Realization dawns on Judal and his expression brightens, before it falls again. "I mean, I love that plan, I'm all about thinking outside the box and how you keep coming up with solutions to my problems, but that shit works because I've built it into the magic of the area. We'd have to do all the preparations for it before casting it, and it's kinda intense."

"That's fine. Do you think I can do it? If not, I guess I can act as bait while you're setting it up," Hakuryuu says, trying to outline all the steps in his head. He's not as sturdy as Judal or quite as fast, but he could probably distract the genie without getting too injured, as long as it's not a very long process.

"Uh. I dunno if this is gonna work," Judal admits. "Like, it's a lot of shit. It took me ages to get it right."

"But that was with trial and error, right?" Hakuryuu asks, trying to clarify, but Judal grabs him and flies them up before he can answer. There's a smoldering crater where they just were, and Hakuryuu winces.

"Yeah, you're gonna have to do it. I don't have any other ideas and you're quicker at that sort of finicky shit than I've ever been," Judal says, taking Hakuryuu back down to safe ground. "It's just like, ugh, I can't explain it, but you just-" He stops suddenly, gesturing wildly like his hand motions are going to somehow explain the incredibly complex spell they're discussing, before sighing loudly. "Just take the spell apart and think about what it's reacting to, you know?"

Hakuryuu nods slowly. He doesn't know. But he's going to have to figure it out anyway, so he may as well agree. "I can try," he says honestly, and Judal gives him a thumbs up before zipping off to distract the genie again.

He has the lamp, his wand, and the knowledge that he can do at least one part of this spell. Judal's lack of faith in it isn't very reassuring but he's going to at least try to make it work. Hakuryuu ducks behind one of the remaining trees for cover and closes his eyes, thinking about everything that makes the spell work. It's like working with a riddle that's missing half the clues and the other half are useless without the missing ones. But he's going to do it, and hopefully before Judal gets himself injured in new and horrifying ways.

There's magic in the air, trying to distract him, but Hakuryuu does his best to block it out and take himself back to Judal showing him the sigils to draw, to when he figured out how to do it himself, and to how quickly it became like second nature. It fits into the magic of Judal's shop perfectly but he knows, he knows there has to be a way to pluck it out of its current environment and make it work somewhere else.

Once, twice, three times now he's turned it over in his mind, pulling at the pieces like Judal suggested, until finally, finally when he almost thinks he's exhausted all his options it clicks into place. Hakuryuu can't help but grin in satisfaction. This is it. This can work.

He runs back to where Judal and the genie are throwing magic back and forth like it's a morbid game that they're both intent on winning. Each blast is massive, enough to kill a man in an instant, and he can only pray Judal keeps the attention on himself without nearly dying again. He just needs a little more time to put this spell together. Hakuryuu's found that he works best with nature, and so he draws on the magic in the dirt beneath his feet and the stray strands of grass that remain, feeling them pulse as he borrows their power to work something foreign into it before giving it back, carving invisible sigils in them to ground what he's working on. He doesn't need a large area, just enough to put the lamp on. Theoretically he could do this to the lamp itself, but it's so much easier to work his magic this way.

The wind rustles his hair and he looks up to see Judal flying by, so low to the ground that Hakuryuu guesses he fell again and just barely managed to catch himself, and he forces himself not to rush his spells. He has to get this right on the first try.

Hakuryuu sets the lamp on the prepared ground and its magic resists everything he's trying to do; it doesn't want to be bound to anything but the genie that belongs inside it. That's too bad, though. He rips through layers of protective spells to get to its core, forcing his own power into it until he's tied it to the vague emptiness that Judal uses. He doesn't touch any of the spells related to the genie. They'll need those to get it back in the lamp.

Satisfied with his work, Hakuryuu takes a deep breath. He feels tired already but he can push through; giving up now isn't an option. He grabs the lamp again and looks to the skies in time to see Judal launch an ice spear at the genie while flying away quickly, probably to avoid a counterattack of some sort.

"Judal!" he yells, hoping that luck will be on his side and Judal will actually listen to him again. Instead, there's a terrible crash as the ice shatters and turns back at Judal, sharp as daggers. Apparently he's going to have to drag the genie back into the lamp, too.

He can do this. He's exhausted, but he can do this. Hakuryuu holds the lamp tightly and tries to pull the genie back that way, but he's unsurprised when it doesn't work. Of course the most simple method wouldn't do anything. He feels the rush of power in his hands and it almost makes him want to wish on it, wish that it would go back in on its own, and he has to shake his head to clear the urges. It's too tempting.

Judal lands in front of him, looking much rougher than before. "Hey, I thought I heard you calling me, but I was trying to outrun some fucking bullshit."

"I was. Can you get the genie into the lamp?" Hakuryuu asks, and Judal's eyes light up.

"Probably! I'm tired of toying around with this asshole anyway," he says, snatching the lamp out of Hakuryuu's hands and flying off again.

Judal makes it look so easy, but in a way it makes sense. This is flashier and less about thoughtful planning and more about just using as much power as possible to make it happen. Judal is practically glowing as he floods the air around him with magic.

"Hey, fuckwit! You ready to get back in your cramped tiny home?" he taunts. "Too bad! I'm tired of you!"

There's a horrible noise, like a cacophony of screams twisted together, as the genie gets drawn back into its lamp. Hakuryuu can see it struggling but this time, Judal is stronger, relying on his own skill and the genie's bond to the lamp, until it's finally trapped back inside. Judal heads back his way, tossing the lamp to Hakuryuu when he gets close.

"Got it!" he says proudly. "You gonna take it from here?"

Hakuryuu nods. "I think this should work."

Judal is leaning on his staff for support, but he manages a confident smirk anyway. "If you're too tired I can take over, you know."

"I don't think you'll do as well as me," Hakuryuu points out, carefully placing the lamp in the prepared area. "I planned this very specifically, and to explain it to you-"

"Yeah, I know, you got it under control," he interrupts, waving a hand. "Don't let me stop you."

Hakuryuu doesn't answer him again. He's got work to do. He closes his eyes, since he's found it to be the easiest way to begin this sort of spell, and takes a deep breath as he blocks out everything that isn't important to what he's about to do. He can feel the twisted anger of the genie trying to claw its way back out of the lamp, but that's inconsequential. He'll have it out of here before it can get that far.

He flicks his wand forward, drawing the sigils he'll need in the air quickly and precisely, until he taps the lamp with his wand. For a second he's afraid it didn't work, that he messed something up along the way, but then it vanishes without a trace.

Judal whoops with laughter from behind him and it pulls him out of the quiet zone he was in. "You did it!" Judal tells him proudly. "Shit, I better never piss you off at the wrong time."

"I'm sure it would work much differently with humans," Hakuryuu assures him and Judal just shakes his head.

"That was fucking awesome," Judal insists.

"Thank you," Hakuryuu says. Now that the adrenaline rush is over, he's not feeling so great. He'd really like to sit down and maybe take a small nap. Perhaps even a long nap, depending on how relaxed he feels in bed.

"Heyyy, Hakuryuu, you still listening?" Judal asks, waving a hand in front of his face. Hakuryuu jumps a little. Did he zone out? Did Judal ask him something and he missed it?

He nods slowly. "I'm just feeling kind of tired," he admits.

"No shit! You did a fuck ton of super impressive magic! Not everyone can do all that without getting exhausted," he explains, throwing an arm around Hakuryuu's shoulders. "You're really good at thinking things out, you know?"

Hakuryuu starts the walk back to the car, every step feeling like he's walking through mud. He's trying not to think about the disaster they've left the park, but it's not like they can fix it easily. It will have to just be some sort of unexplained phenomena. "I try to make plans that put your power to good use by actually giving it direction."

"Wow, rude," he says, laughing the whole time. Conversation trails off as Hakuryuu has to spend all his energy staying upright. He's going to have a talk with Judal later about this. He wants to be able to do more complicated magic without feeling like this afterwards.

When they reach the car, Judal gives him a concerned look. "Are you really up to driving? You look beat."

"Of course. It's not like you can drive," he says, before pausing. "Can you drive?"

"I have a license," Judal tells him without any implication that he's actually decent at driving. That's worrying.

"Having a license doesn't mean you're good at it. You don't have a car."

He shrugs. "So I haven't practiced in a couple decades. How hard could it be?"

Hakuryuu thinks about the choices he's made and what else he could do, before handing his keys over to Judal reluctantly. "Please don't kill us in a fiery car crash."

He takes them with a wink. "No promises!"

x･x･x

Judal manages to park with less difficulty than Hakuryuu expected, and he has never been so excited to get out of a car. At least he's feeling much more awake now. Judal's driving is like visiting a completely unregulated amusement park and taking your chances on every ride in the park before vomiting behind the port-a-potties, and he never wants to risk his life experiencing it again.

"Ha, that was fun!" Judal exclaims once he's out of the car, twirling the keys around a finger. "We should do this more often."

"Give me those," Hakuryuu says, holding out his hand expectantly.

Judal frowns but passes them over. "What, you don't like my driving skills?"

"I think I might be ill," he says, and Judal just laughs. He's a terrible boyfriend.

"Whatever, I had fun anyway," he says, but Hakuryuu is barely listening to him. Apparently his sleep-addled brain has decided that he and Judal are actually some sort of official couple, which he's not sure how he feels about. They're close, yes, but are they really at the point where they should consider it dating? He's not sure. He never knows how to handle romantic entanglements properly, and knowing Judal, he'd probably rather they never talk about it.

Judal opens the door to the shop and gives Hakuryuu a strange look. "Man, you are really out of it. I've been talking this whole time and you haven't once told me to shut up."

Hakuryuu jerks out of his thoughts. "I enjoy listening to you talk sometimes," he says, trying to cover up that he really hasn't been listening. He knows he has a reason for it, but he doesn't want Judal to know.

"I can tell when you're actually listening," he says, but he doesn't seem hurt, just concerned. "I probably shoulda driven you home but I didn't really know how to get to your place. I can send you home once I sit down and rest a little if you want, though."

"I'm surprised you're not inviting me to spend the night again," Hakuryuu says, trying to tease, though he thinks it sounds disappointed more than anything. That wasn't his intention.

Judal gives him a tired smile. "That would be easier. but you always seem so put upon when I offer. You have your own little routine and I know I keep messing it up."

"I guess I do, but I'm not upset by you trying to help me."

"Aw, thanks."

"I mean it. I think it's very sweet that you want to help, even if sometimes I feel like you're doing it because you want the company more than anything else," Hakuryuu says, trying to make it better. From Judal's expression, he doesn't think he's doing a good job. "Thank you. For your help."

"I'm gonna offer to let you stay again," Judal says in response. "I asked earlier but I don't think you actually heard what I was saying, so here's my offer: come up, eat my shitty microwave food, and sleep on my crappy futon."

"That's a terrible sounding offer."

"Yeah, I know."

"I'm still going to take you up on it, though," Hakuryuu tells him, and Judal's face lights up. "Maybe not the microwave food part, however. I think I just want to sleep."

Judal shakes his head. "Nah, you gotta eat. It'll help you feel better. Magic burns a bunch of calories, you know? So you'll need the energy!"

Hakuryuu doesn't disagree; he doesn't have the energy to argue. He'll take Judal's word for it as he follows him back out of the shop and up into his apartment. Why didn't they just do this in the first place? Judal may have said something when he wasn't paying attention, but it's also entirely possible that he had some plan that no one else was privy to. Either way, Hakuryuu finds himself looking forward to curling up on Judal's couch with him, even if it's going to involve whatever instant food he has stashed in his kitchen.

"'Kay, you go sit on the couch and I'll find food," Judal instructs him, shooing him away. Hakuryuu nods and follows his instructions, settling into the soft cushions. He knows he should wait for Judal's return, but it won't hurt to rest his eyes for a little. Hakuryuu shuts his eyes, just for a moment, and immediately falls asleep.