Morrigan slammed her stick off the ice.  "This has been the longest game of my life.  We can't fucking win without Allora and Johnny!" she screamed at Johnny's replacement.

Johnny's replacement, whose name was Fred McClellan simply stared, staying focused on the game.  Morrigan threw her hands up in the air.  "I give!" she yelled as she began to skate off the ice. 

Coach Ryder stared at her in disbelief.  "Downs!  What do you think you're doing?"

Morrigan laughed hysterically.  "I have no idea!"

Ryder's eyes nearly popped out of his head.  "Get the hell off the ice!  Novak –"

"Call a time out."  Ryder and Morrigan's eyes both simultaneously darted looking for the familiar voice.

"What?  Allora is that you?" called the coach, still searching.  He turned to the referee.  "Time!"

"Up here!" yelled Johnny.  The Ice Demons and Coach Ryder glanced up at the stands behind them, as well as Truman who had just returned from the snack counter with food for himself and Coach Ryder. 

Coach Ryder gasped.  "The paramedics said you two were pretty banged up.  What are you doing here?"

"We came to play." Allora said while glaring at an astonished Colin Trent.

"Yeah!" cheered Johnny.  "So uh, would you mind helping us down? Security wouldn't let us get near the ice."

*****

The game was over, and Granger won it 7-4 - which was no surprise.  But JM had their own little victory of sorts.  They managed to knock out five Wizards versus the four Ice Demons that Granger had, plus they got into seven fist fights.  JM was never an overly aggressive team, and they usually respected their rivals such as Bishop-Mason.  But, naturally, Granger was a different story.

Johnny hadn't driven to the game, so in order to get a ride from Brystol, who drove her mom's caravan on game days, they had to walk up the hill that separated the Ice Palace from JM.  This was because Brystol refused to park in the Ice Palace lot saying that if her mom's van got dinged she'd spaz and she's be grounded for weeks, and that she preferred to park close to the gym when she had cheerleading.  "That was a pretty impressive comeback you guys," Trey gushed as he gazed at Allora. 

"Oh, thanks," answered Johnny with a tired expression on his face as he dragged his exhausted body up the hill from the Ice Palace towards the school.

"Yeah, thanks," Allora sighed as she walked up the hill in a rather similar manner to that of Johnny's. 

Morrigan grabbed Allora's bag.  "I've got it, hon."

"Thanks."

When the six finally reached the top of the hill, they found Brystol, still clad in her cheerleading outfit, had been left to finish cleaning up the gym from tryouts.

"Bunnie Ramone!  That bitch!" she complained.  "She stuck me with the job of cleaning up after the tryouts."  Brystol stomped her foot angrily on the floor.

Truman looked around the room skeptically.  "Really, Brystol, I don't see what's the big deal.  The gym looks fine to me.  All you have to do is move a few chairs and a table and you're finished, right?"

Brystol folded her arms across her chest and snarled.  "WRONG!  I also have to mop the floor.  The entire gym floor!  Ugh!  The janitors are off today, just my luck."

Trey stuck his hands in his pockets and walked over towards the table.  "I'll tell you what, Brystol, I'll help you out."

Drake walked over towards Trey and picked up one end of the table.  "You get the other end, Trey," he instructed.

Trey picked up the other end of the table and the two boys left the gym to move the table back into the café from where it had come.

"What about you three?" Brystol asked, with her hands on her hips, looking at Johnny, Morrigan, and Allora, who sat on the bleachers.  "Don't tell me.  You're tired from the game?"

Morrigan smirked.  "Actually, we are.  Granger really beat us around today.  We are only a team of sophomores."  Then she pointed to Johnny and Allora.  "And those two have concussions."

"Of course," Brystol said as she struggled to pick up a chair.

"What about me?"  Truman enquired from behind her.

Brystol turned around.  "Oh, Truman, uh… you can um…"

Truman narrowed his eyes at Brystol as he picked up the remaining chair, bringing it high above his head.  "Where does this go?" he queried.

Brystol's jaw dropped.  "Truman, I…"

"I play tennis.  Very well, in fact," he stated, his expression still smug.

"Okay, then," Brystol replied as she walked out of the gym towards the school, still a bit shocked, "follow me."

Truman followed Brystol and they both left.

"Brystol is so oblivious sometimes," Morrigan growled, looking to Johnny and Allora.  "Truman won JM a third place state championship in tennis last year.  It just goes to show you how shallow cheerleaders are about sports that don't involve them.  Although, I did think Brystol knew about Truman and Tennis.  Oh, well."

Allora shook her head in agreement.  "I must say, I was a bit disappointed in the publicity the event got last year.  Our tennis players are pretty good.  They deserve the school's support.  They are athletes, too, after all."

"Unlike our football team," Johnny chuckled as he laid back against the bleachers.  "You know, these things are pretty comfortable when you're tired."

Allora and Morrigan laid back as well, and all three closed their eyes.

*****

"I still can't believe you got us locked in here, Drake!"  Brystol fumed.

"How was I supposed to know the café doors would lock if I closed them?" he sulked. 

       "Common sense, Drake," Truman yelled.  "All school doors do that!"

       "Guys, let's not fight," Trey began.

       Drake, Brystol, and Truman looked at Trey.  "Shut up!" they shouted in unison. 

Trey quivered, pulling his flannel from around his waist over his shoulders.  "Sorry, jeez."

"Really, though," Drake said.  "It's not my fault entirely.  We've been in here nearly forty-five minutes and where are Morrigan, Allora, and Johnny?  Shouldn't they have come looking for us?"

"Well, maybe they got tired of waiting for us," Truman suggested.

"Yeah!  People do have lives!" Brystol added, now nearly in tears.

"Maybe the demons got them," Trey offered lamely while sitting on a table top.

"Shut up!" the other three again responded.

"I bet it was Johnny's fault that they left," Drake started.  "I bet he made them go home to watch some stupid hockey game on TV.  He's so ignorant sometimes that he leads me to believe that he's slightly retarded."

"It was so NOT Johnny's fault that they left!" Brystol declared defiantly.  "He would never leave me stranded.  He said so himself!"

"And Drake," Trey said, "it's the beginning of October.  Hockey season hasn't started yet."

Drake grumbled and folded his arms.  "You're supposed to be on my side!"

Brystol laughed.  "Shot down by your own cousin and best friend.  Don't you feel like an idiot?  Anyways, I bet its Morrigan.  She's always causing problems.  She probably took poor Allora and Johnny to her house to convert them to Satanism or something."

"Not likely!" Truman shot at Brystol, eyes flaring.

"Well who else's fault could it be?  Certainly not Allora's.  She's too… I don't know, Allora-ish!"

"Hey, watch it!" complained Trey.

Brystol sneered at Trey.  "Like I was saying!  The last person left to blame is Morrigan!"

"Well it's not her fault.  She wouldn't leave me here." Truman pouted.

"You mean she wouldn't leave me here." Drake shot, glaring at Truman.  "Can I make a suggestion, Tru?" he asked, but gave no time to answer, for he continued with, "Good.  Let me make a suggestion.  Let me handle the defense of MY girlfriend."

"Well she's my best friend!" Truman yelled, feeling adrenaline rushing through his blood.

"That may be so, but who was she supposed to go home with tonight?  Certainly not you!"

"Supposed is the key word here!  And she's not with you either!" Truman then paused.  "What exactly do you mean by her going home with you tonight, anyway?"

Drake smirked.  "Use your imagination, Tru."

"You bastard!" Truman screamed.  "Don't you even touch her!"

Both boys subconsciously walked closer to each other until they were in each other's faces.

"You wanna try to stop me, gay man?" Drake instigated.

"Perhaps.  It's not like you could do much.  Unless you intend on blinding me to death."

Drake growled.  "We'll see about that."

Trey walked over to Drake.  "If you touch Truman, you know, Morrigan would never forgive you.  It's not worth it, man."

Truman turned his gaze to Trey.  "Are you suggesting this ruffian could take me?"

"Well, not really, Truman, but he does have two inches over you and about thirty pounds."

Brystol was really starting to get worried.  She was the only who really knew Truman.  He was never this violent.  She carefully walked over to Truman and put a hand on his shoulder.  "Truman, this pig is so not worth it.  I'm sorry I underestimated you earlier today and blamed us getting locked in here on Morrigan.  We all know who's fault it is.  Mine for getting you all involved.  So forget it."

Truman sighed and retreated.  "Okay, Brystol, I suppose you're right."  He turned and began to walk to the opposite side of the cafeteria.

"Hah!  That's the way it's supposed to be gay man!" Drake cheered.

Truman turned around and lunged.  Drake fell to the floor under the impact of Truman's body on his.  Truman raised his right fist, but Trey grabbed it.  "Truman, don't!" he screamed.  Truman once again regained his control, and began to get off of Drake.  But Drake wasn't finished.  He punched Truman right in the jaw and forced him off completely, now bringing Truman to the floor.  Truman felt his mouth to find his lip was bleeding.  Tears began to dwell up in his eyes but he held them back.  Drake got up off the floor and laughed sadistically.  "Stupid fagot!"

Truman held his mouth and curled up in a ball on the floor.

Trey couldn't believe the way Drake had just acted, and knelt by Truman's side.  "Are you okay, man?  I'm so sorry."  He stood up and looked at Drake angrily.  "You asshole!" and with that been said, Trey grabbed Drake's coat collar and threw him against the wall.

Brystol began to cry hysterically as she then ran to Truman's side.  "Tru, are you okay?  Kill him Trey!"

Trey brought Drake up to his eye level, being that Drake was a little shorter than him. "Don't you ever do that again Drake," he commanded in a very un-Trey-like manner.

Drake smirked and Trey dropped him.  Then Trey turned around to find Drake laughing at Truman yet again.  So, Trey used all his force and uppercut Drake under his jaw and watched as Drake fell to the ground unconscious.

       Trey walked over to the door and opened it.  "I'm outta here."

       "Trey!  How did you open the door?" asked Brystol still holding Truman.

       Trey blinked in confusion.  "It wasn't locked… anymore."

       Brystol helped Truman up and looked over at Drake.  "Let's go…"

*****

       "Damn them!" screamed Morrigan as she summoned a Golem Hand attack at an oncoming brownish colored demon.  "Where did they go?"

       "Do you think we'd know?" asked Allora, blocking a punch from a blue colored demon. 

While Brystol, Trey, Truman, and Drake had been locked in the cafeteria, a band of demons had attacked the sleeping Morrigan, Johnny, and Allora.  The fight had been going on for about ten minutes and our poor heroes were not fairing well.  There were, after all, only three very tired hockey players, and five demons.

Johnny pounded his metal knuckled fists into another slightly darker blue demon's chest.  "Well wherever they are, they'd better come soon.  I can't hold up much longer and my head hurts like a son-of-a-gun."

"But, guys, have you noticed, only three demons are fighting us," Allora pointed out as she threw a lightening bolt at the lighter blue demon.  "And weren't there five demons in the beginning?  I only count four here."

Johnny glanced up from his demon bashing and saw a noticeably familiar demon sitting on the bleachers observing the battle intently.  "That's not very comforting.  I thought there were five demons also.  Do you guys think he may have gotten the others?," he asked as he did his best to conjure a fire ball at the demon he was fighting.  But, he was simply too tired to control it and it hit the bleachers next to the demon.

He stood up abruptly, looking rather peeved.  "All right," the demon commanded in a deep but rather annoying voice. "It's time to finish them off.  I have to attend a meeting with Validus about a certain group of humans in Connecticut."

The three demons said something between themselves in what almost looked to be a mocking manor as the commanding demon disappeared in a ball of flames.

"Were they just mocking him?" Morrigan enquired as she and the others regrouped.

"I was thinking the same thing." Allora stated as she frowned despairingly at her ripped battle outfit. 

Johnny looked at his own outfit.  "I hope these things are insured." 

Morrigan then elbowed Allora.  "Why do you think they're just standing there?" she asked, pointing to the demons who looked they were in no hurry.

Allora, now trying to arrange her battle outfit in a way that wasn't revealing, looked up.  "Well, when that other demon left, those three kinda just stopped fighting us.  Realistically speaking, we really aren't much of a threat to them.  They have only been playing with us, after all."

Morrigan's eyes widened.  "Playing with us?  What do you mean?"

Johnny glared at Morrigan cock-eyed.  "You mean you never noticed?  You give us more credit than we deserve."

Allora folded her arms.  "Three tired, teenage hockey players with almost no experience at demon slaying cannot hope to win a battle against three experienced demonic warriors."

The dark blue demon walked over to the three as the other two demons began lounging on the remaining bleachers that had not been charred.  "Good guess, girl," he complimented in a raspy voice.  "You three really aren't much of a challenge.  See, we're just waiting for one of our comrades to arrive with the rest of you so we can get rid of you all at once.  And don't take it personally.  We really don't want to kill you.  In my opinion, you're a waste of our time.  But, orders are orders, even they come from Validus's crony, Demisses."  The demon then turned around to find Brystol, Truman, and Trey being shoved into the gym by the missing fourth demon who was a dark shade of forest green.

"Stop shoving!" shrieked Brystol.  "If my cheerleading uniform gets ripped, I'm gonna go postal."

"Just shut up and get into the middle of the gym," the green demon said.  "And you three as well."

Allora, Morrigan, and Johnny eyed each other, but walked to the center of the gym as told.

Morrigan looked at Brystol and sneered.  "Had you changed into your battle outfit, you wouldn't have had to worry about your stupid little cheerleading uniform."

Brystol growled.  "Well I haven't gotten mine yet!"

Johnny blushed.  "Oh, sorry, Brys, the stuff's in my car still.  I keep forgetting."

Morrigan glared at Truman and Trey.

Truman hit his head.  "I knew we forgot something…"

"Hey… Where's Drake?" Allora began.

 "Ahem," the light blue demon interrupted.  "This is what we're going to do: first we'll lock you in separate rooms all over the school.  All which have no windows, cause I've already scoped them out, and uh, we're gonna this here building on fire and you'll either burn or suffocate to death.  'Cause you see, normally we would fight you, but that just doesn't fit into our current schedule.  We have tickets to the Steelers game that starts in like an hour so uh, be good little humans and do as we say."

Brystol smiled sweetly.  "Schedule dilemmas don't we all have them?  Um, speaking of schedules.  Killing me, really doesn't fit into MY schedule."  She took a thick planner out of her purse and opened to the current date, then turned to the next day.  "And tomorrow doesn't look good either."  She continued to flip through her planner and shake her head.  "I'm really sorry.  This just isn't working for me.  How about you kill me… never?"

The green pushy demon laughed.  "Nice try, but we have to do our job."

Brystol shoved her planner back into her purse and sighed. 

Trey looked at Brystol's purse in amazement.  "How do you fit all that stuff into that little blue purse?"

Brystol raised her finger.  "One word.  Organization."

The demons looked at each other and burst out laughing.  "These humans are too much, I tell you." said the brownish demon.

Brystol turned to her friends and nodded towards the exit and mouthed the word "run".  So, all six began to run towards the door, but were stopped abruptly by the dark blue demon.  "I think not."  He waved his hand and suddenly all of them found themselves in separate school rooms all with the doors locked and no windows – just like the demons had said.

Outside the school, the four demons hovered above it and formed fire balls nearly fifty feet in diameter each above their heads.  "Ready, aim, fire!" they yelled in unison as the fire balls raced towards the school. 

When the fire balls finally did hit the school, the six teenagers could feel the whole building shook with the impact of each ball.  Instinctively, they each ran for the door and started hammering on it, but they all knew inside their gut, that they were trapped. 

Trey felt really bad about Drake right then.  He knew that Drake quite possibly could have already been dead, and it would have been all his fault.  But before he could dwell on that thought, Drake was standing right in front of him, rubbing his sore jaw.  Trey turned himself in a circle to find all of his other comrades were there too.  Then it hit him.  Where am I?  Then he saw the Ice Palace.  They were in the Ice Palace parking lot.  "How did we get here?" he asked. 

Morrigan pointed to her shoulder.  "Lydia saved us."  There, sure enough, on Morrigan's shoulder stood Lydia, breathing heavily. 

"Transporting humans isn't exactly a faerie's greatest power.  It's really a strain for me to transport all of you like this.  I was really surprised to find that I could do it with the time permitting," she explained.  "But I'm glad you are all okay.  You all must be able to handle yourselves in a situation like that.  I can't do that all the time, like I have been."

Allora walked over towards Lydia and Morrigan.  "Thank you, Lydia.  We won't let that happen again."

Johnny walked over to Lydia as well.  "I'm sorry we ever doubted you."

Lydia smiled.  "That's okay.  But what are we to do about that?"  Lydia motioned towards the burning school as the sound of fire trucks filled the air.

"It's not our problem," Drake said.  "But what is our problem is that we're going to be separated.  Whenever something like that happened back in Vegas, kids were usually shipped off to neighboring public schools."

Trey gulped.  "He's right, guys.   But what are we supposed to do?"

Allora felt a dozen eyes fall upon her.  She gripped her head and shook it violently.  "I don't know.  Let's sleep on it.  I mean, we can't control what happens at this point.  It's in the school district's hands.  Let's just hope we don't get blamed for this."

The group's eyes fell to ground.  "I agree, Allora," Truman replied.  "So let's go home."

So each one, human or Faerie, turned in their separate direction and slowly trudged home.