As Luck Would Have It

A/N: my apologies for the long wait. ALATC delayed things a bit. But here it is for you!! Chapter nineteen of ALWHI! Twenty to follow soon!

Chapter Nineteen: Bad Day

            "Morning already?" Ivan groaned as Isaac shook him awake. "Somehow I can tell this is going to be a bad day."

            "Oh, come on now. We just solved all of Bilibin's and Kolima's problems. How can that be bad?" Isaac asked with a grin.

            "What are you, crazy? Wait, don't answer that. We were forbidden by 'lord' McCoy to have anything to do with Kolima Forest, remember?"

            "They can see past that, I'm sure. Get up, get ready, we've got some people to see." Ivan groaned as Isaac left the room. Enough coins for separate rooms had come from the Evil Tret battle, and Ivan almost wishes he'd been human enough to see it. Garet and Mia had filled him in a bit on the walk back, but neither of them had really been in a talking mood.

            Ivan joined the others (Zoe included) as the last for breakfast. He recounted for them some of the finer points of being a tree, which were not fine at all from his point of view, and Zoe sighed.

            "It makes me wish I was…coherent at the time. I could have helped," she said wistfully.

            "It wasn't fate's way," Ivan said cryptically, and they all looked at him.

            "Let's just get this over with," Garet said, and there was a simultaneous nod. Together the five rose and headed for McCoy's makeshift palace.

            "We've been looking everywhere for you!" said one of the guards as they approached the entrance.

            "You have?" Mia asked incredulously.

            "The curse of the holy tree…you're the ones who broke it, right?" asked the other guard.

            "Well…yeah…" Isaac said falteringly. "I mean, yes, we are." Both guards smiled and nodded.

            So the adepts were taken by total surprise when both guards yelled, "You're under arrest!" The five were grabbed roughly, hands held behind their backs, and escorted silently to McCoy's chamber.

            "We've brought the warriors, milord," said the front guard, shoving Isaac in.

            "Ungrateful slimy slithering wet…" Garet grumbled as he too was thrown into the room, Ivan, Mia and Zoe behind him.

            "So, yeh're the wee—I mean, brave—lads I met before!" McCoy said rather cheerfully. Mia's eyebrows shot up.

            "Lads?" she whispered furiously. Zoe put a hand on her shoulder and shook her head.

            "What were yer names, again?" McCoy asked, scratching his head and reminding the adepts of a confused ape.

            "I'm Isaac," Isaac said, giving a forced grin, "tall and redheaded is Garet, short and blond is Ivan, blue and…glaring…is Mia, and purple and perplexed in the back there is Zoe. Now what do you want?"

            "Isaac and company…" McCoy began, earning another icy stare from Mia. "And did I not decline yer offer when we first met?"

            "Bad day, Isaac, like I said," Ivan muttered.

            "You did. Did that matter?" Isaac asked McCoy, who went red.

            "I did nae give it enough consideration back then," he admitted, and Mia smiled in a satisfied way. "And yet yeh went oan tae break the curse despite my words, did yeh not?"

            "Correct again."

            "I humbly thank you," McCoy said, with as much a bow as such a big man could give. "I was worried yeh might nae stop here on your way back."

            "Oh, no, we wanted to be arrested," Ivan muttered.

            "You just have to keep rubbing my face in it, don't you?" Isaac asked, and Ivan nodded. "That was rhetorical."

            "I know."

            "I want tae show my appreciation for yer help…" McCoy went on.

            "Long-winded, isn't he?" Garet remarked, and Mia and Zoe giggled.

            "I relied oan my money, but I forgot about m people's needs. Yeh reminded me of my duties. As lord of these lands, I will do my best for everyone's behalf. Isaac, it would honor me greatly if yeh'd accept a wee token of my gratitude."

            "Depends on your offer," Isaac said with Venus-like calm.

            "Yeh can choose yerself, from my personal treasury! Choose somethin' that'll help yeh along yer way. Many thanks tae yeh, and tae yer companions as well." Mia smiled her satisfied grin again, and they turned to follow the guard to the treasury. "Yeh lads did well."

            "Lads?" Mia asked again, louder this time, and whirled around, ice blue eyes fixed on McCoy. "LADS??"

            "Surely I'm not believin' the lasses defeated the holy tree!" McCoy said, and he and the guards shared a hearty laugh. "An absurd idea!"

            "For your information," Garet said hotly, "Mia is the reason we made it out of Kolima Forest alive and in one piece. Pardon, Ivan…five separate single pieces."

            "Surely yeh're makin' up such a tale! This one here looks too weak to swing that staff she carries! And that one, in the back there…how can yeh be tellin' me she uses that sword?"

            "I'll have you know, 'Lord' McCoy," Mia said sarcastically, storming up to him, "Zoe and I uphold our end just as easily as the boys do. And if you can't believe that," she said, raising her hand, "maybe this will change your mind!" She shrieked, anger flowing through her worse than it ever had, and slapped McCoy across the face with all her strength.

            McCoy began to laugh. "A weak lass. I felt it not," he said, though his expression clearly showed otherwise. His face turned into a puzzled one as he found himself unable to move. Isaac made a mental note to ask Mia about it later.

            "Strong words from a man who is slave to his woman," Isaac muttered darkly.

            "A woman who's weaker and dumber than Mia, at that," Zoe added angrily. Mia turned to them, meeting four gazes of complete approval. Whirling to face McCoy again, she raised her hand and this time did not scream, grinning evilly as she saw McCoy flinch.

            "Afraid? You should be," Mia said, her voice dripping venom as she lowered her hand very slowly. "Learn manners and respect, and I'll reconsider my judgment of you. Now, sir guard, please lead us to the treasury?"

            The guard easily obliged, leading them quickly down a flight of stairs and to a room with four treasure chests inside, instructing Isaac to choose one.

            "The one on the far right," Ivan muttered, "holds the best prize." Isaac gave him a disbelieving look, and Ivan tapped his forehead. Isaac shrugged and opened the rightmost chest, pulling out a Water of Life.

            "Zoe, your Water of Life didn't sparkle gold like that…" Garet muttered, and she shrugged. Like she knew. Since the last memory, she had yet to come up with another one, though she had run out of paper with the way she had been drawing lately.

            As they left the palace, they ran into McCoy's wife, who Zoe thought looked eerily similar to her. Ivan, picking up on those thoughts, whispered, "You've got a much nicer demeanor, Zo'."

            After enduring her enraged ranting about McCoy's inability to do even the slightest task, Isaac raised a hand to silence her.

            "That's all well and good, ma'am. Now, could you give us directions to Kolima Village?"

            "East of here," she said venomously, then turned and stalked off. Mia, after a long moment, suggested that they go to Kolima sooner rather then later.

            "The residents there might be a bit…friendlier," she said, and the others easily agreed.

            "It's a long walk," Garet put in. "But when has that mattered?" he added dryly as they walked full out from the castle to the gates, and out the gates with a sharp left turn. They kept walking fast for a while, and by the time they stopped, they had reached the barricade, and the energy for talk seemed beyond them.

            The energy for battle obviously stood untouched, though, as a horde of Zombies, Rats, and Rat Soldiers assailed them as they walked to Kolima. Even with the delay, they were in the village before two in the afternoon, and even time-conscious Isaac thought that would have been impossible.

            "Ivan, how much Psynergy have you got left?" Isaac asked quietly.

            "Considering it's the only thing I usually use, not much. You have something in mind?"

            "Did you know that was a pun? Anyway, I was wondering if you minded…oh, what, this is pun day now…if you minded reading these people's minds and seeing if they're as angry as McCoy."

            Ivan closed his eyes for a moment and Psynergy flared. Then he opened them again and grinned. "They all just are happy they are no longer trees. Likely they don't know it's our fault."

            "Speaking of fault," Garet said, and the others looked at him. "Mia, what was that you did back there?"

            "I don't know, really. I think it was some…strange combination of Psynergy loss, sleep loss, and me hating McCoy with everything I have. And, you know, I was half of the reason we made it out of there."

            "Only half?" Garet asked incredulously. "Mia, you are pretty much the entire reason we got out of there! Don't let it get to your head or anything," he added hastily.

            "I have strong doubt that things get to her DJINNI!" Ivan yelped, jumping into the air. Several people stopped and stared at him, then shrugged and went about their activities.

            "You doubt that things get to my Djinni? Which one?" Mia asked. Ivan shook his head and pointed, the biggest grin in the world on his face. "Oh. A Venus Djinni. So?"

            "SO?!" Isaac cried, practically jumping himself at the idea of another Venus Djinni. "It's mine, it's mine! I mean," he said, regaining a measure of his composure, "since it matches my element and all."

            "Right. How do we get inside the fence that's surrounding the thing?" Garet asked.

            "This ladder might help," Zoe said, crouching in the shadows of one of the tree-trunk buildings. "It looks like it leads to some kind of basement. Come on! Let's go down!"

            Slowly they climbed the rickety and rotted-looking ladder. It did indeed lead to a basement of sorts, though it felt more like a damp cave. Mia, the last one down, made a disgusted noise as she wiped the grime from her hands on the back of Garet's cloak. Garet cried out in protest, and Mia only grinned.

            "Be quiet!" Isaac hissed. "We don't know what's down here."

            "It's under a village, for Jupiter's sake," Ivan said. "What could possibly go wrong?" As though Ivan had given it a cue, what looked like a discarded pile of kitchen utensils flew at him from the shadows and pinned him to the wall.

            "Bad day, Ivan?" Isaac asked sarcastically. Ivan groaned in what Isaac imagined was a kind of Jupiter-Adept curse. The pile of bones, for that's what it was, pieces of a Skeleton, fell from Ivan and reformed themselves into the Skeleton.

            Ivan, free of the bones pinning him to the wall, fell to the ground. Isaac, Garet and Zoe found themselves occupied with the other Skeleton and the Ghost that had followed the first one, while the original Skeleton stood before Ivan and Mia.

            "Very bad day, Isaac," Ivan replied casually, firing a Plasma at the Skeleton as he stood with the help of the Shaman's Rod.

            "I thought you were out of Psynergy!" Garet accused as he ducked a wild swing of Isaac's sword. "Hey, Isaac! Fight the enemy, not me!"

            "If I could hit the Ghost I wouldn't come so close to your head! Tell it to be more substantial!" Isaac shot back as he tried to hit the Ghost again.

            "You do realize that by all logical—" Ivan began.

            "Screw logic," Isaac said, cutting him off as he threw his sword into the air. "Squire's Ragnarok!" The sword became limned with golden light, slowly transforming itself into a giant blade of pure Venus Psynergy.

            Obviously, the Ghost was not as impervious to a Psynergy sword as it was to a metal one, because it disintegrated within seconds of impact. Isaac grinned smugly, then turned to Zoe and Garet, who had been fighting the other Skeleton, only to find it reduced to a quickly-fading pile of bones.

            Isaac turned to watch as Mia finished off the other Skeleton with a Frost. Ivan grinned and gave Isaac a little wave, rolling his eyes as he did so. "Before you ask, I warn you not to. Oh, and Garet, Psynergy does come back over time."

            "Let's just get this over with before something else finds us," Garet grumbled. "And Ivan, you do know you brought that on us, right?"
            "How, might I ask, was it my fault?"

            "Asking what could go wrong. Questions like that always bring trouble. And you were the one who said today would be a bad day, too. What are you, prophetic?"

            "Just lucky, I guess," Ivan said as they climbed another ladder that was within jumping distance (provided they could jump across some nasty-looking water) of the ladder they'd just come down.

            Isaac, who had begun climbing first, fought hard to contain his excitement at the prospect of a second Djinni, tying him with everyone else. Finally, Garet can stop gloating, he thought. Emerging, he called in his mind for Flint, who appeared on his head with barely a show of light.

            "Get off there! Honestly, I hope all you Venus Djinn aren't so transfixed with my head!" Flint only giggled in response as Isaac hauled himself into the fenced area and looked at the Djinni before him.

            "Hello there Granite!" Flint called, and the Djinni whirled.

            "Flint! Long time no see! You've got a human with you!" the Djinni, Granite, replied. "What in the world?"

            "Before you answer, Flint," Isaac said, "convince Granite here to join up and let's get on with it."

            "I didn't know you were so impatient," Garet said from behind.

            "Anything to stop the four of you from goading me about my lack of Summoning prowess."

            "Since when have we done that?" Mia asked.

            "Garet and Ivan do. Anyway…Granite, you interested in a quest to save the world?"

            "Does it involve heights?" the Djinni asked, and Ivan and Flint shared wary looks. "Because if it does, count me out." Isaac breathed a sigh of relief at this.

            "Not really. I don't plan to be climbing any more trees, at any rate. Want to come along?"

            "Sure, why not?" Granite asked rhetorically, dissolving into golden shafts of light. Isaac felt a third mind join the combination of he and Flint. Granite appeared again in a flash of light, with a more greenish tint to it than Flint's.

            "I have a claim on riding on Isaac's head," Flint said haughtily.

            "Flint! You have no such claim! Granite, please, what do you do?"

            "What, you mean my Djinni ability? Defense."

            "Thank you," Isaac said. "Flint, get off my head." The Djinni grudgingly obliged, flashing out mere seconds before Granite. "Now…back down the ladder?"

            "Not again," Ivan moaned. "I like caves less than I like trees."

            "A lot of dislike in there," Garet put in.

            "We could just go over the fence," Zoe suggested, and the other four Adepts turned to look at her. "What?"

            "Could you have mentioned that before we had to go down that ladder?" Garet asked harshly. Zoe shrugged.

            "It didn't occur to me. But it's only about two feet high. Makes me wonder why Granite never left it."

            "Beats me. Venus is an odd element," Ivan said, vaulting the fence in one graceful leap. "There are some advantages to being light," he added reflectively.

            "Or light in the head, in your case," Garet added, landing roughly beside Ivan, who glared at him.

            "Really Garet? I thought you were talking about yourself," Mia put in, as she, Zoe and Isaac joined them on the outside side of the fence.

            "Very funny."

            "I thought it was."

            "Have we had this conversation before?"

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            Early the next morning, after a refreshing (and quiet) stay in Kolima's Inn, which was a tree trunk converted into a building (a fact that made Isaac exuberant and Ivan nervous), the Adepts left Kolima.

            "Where are we headed now?" Garet asked, looking at the map.

            "We've got to get to Venus Lighthouse. This map says it's down by…a place called 'Laviero'?" Zoe questioned, not sure if she was reading the map correctly.

            "Lalivero," Mia corrected, reading over Garet's other shoulder. "Warmer than Imil, definitely. Looks like it's by a desert, even."

            "Sulhalla Desert," Garet said, pointing to it with his free hand. "Hey, wait a minute…Zoe, how did you know we have to go to Venus Lighthouse?"

            "It's the only other lighthouse on your map besides Mercury, Garet," Zoe pointed out.

            "Heads up!" Isaac called back to them. He and Ivan had been in front. "We've got company." Two Rat Soldiers, a Will Head, and a Zombie blocked the path ahead of them.

            "Couldn't we just go around?" Ivan complained. After his little tangle with the Skeleton the day before, he hadn't exactly felt up to another fight. He wasn't about to complain, of course.

            "Go around where?" Mia asked, gesturing to the landscape. A high cliff was on one side, a sheer drop to the water below. On the other side were tall mountains.

            "A thing of endless water at the end of the world…" Isaac said reflectively, thinking of when Kraden had told him those words.

            "We're surrounded!" Zoe cried suddenly. The others whirled to find two Skeletons, a handful of Oozes and several Rats approaching from behind. "How do we take them all down?"

            "Concentrate on one at a time. When that one goes, head for the next. Don't do anything stupid," Isaac cautioned. He drew his sword and looked at the others, each readying their own weapons.

            "I thought Oozes were an Imil thing," Ivan commented dryly as he batted first one, then another, then the other two away with the Shaman's Rod. The spikes on the things' heads were sharp, and if they kept up what they were doing the Shaman's Rod might break.

            Isaac had gone for the Rat Soldiers, thinking himself fast enough and skilled enough with a sword to fight them both off at once. He was hit with glancing blows several times, minor hits that didn't even faze him. Soon one Rat Soldier was gone, and the other one quickly followed after a blast of Spire Psynergy.

            Mia had switched to a different tactic, covering the business end of her Witch's Wand with spiked ice, and was slamming it into the Rats that assailed her with all she was worth. Eventually they began to diminish, but the more she killed the more seemed to appear. One of them jumped onto her back and scratched sharp claws along the side of her face and neck. Another bit hard into her side, causing one hand to drop the Wand as she doubled over.

            Zoe had the Will Head pretty much under control, she thought, raising a hand to use Storm and finish it. It retaliated, however, with its Mystic Fire, burning Zoe and causing her to stumble back, sword held defensively in front of her. The Will Head jumped, impaling itself on the blade and disintegrating. Seeing the disadvantage Mia was at, Zoe turned to aid the Mercury Adept.

            Garet found himself fending off the Skeletons. A couple rounds of Volcano had them looking quite crispy, but one of them managed to crack Garet on the head with a bony arm. He yelped and jumped back, glaring at the two Skeletons that had suddenly become four.

            "I summon the spirit of Kirin, mythical beast of flame!" Garet called, and Kirin rode in through its circle of fire and finished the Skeletons. Garet instantly turned to help Ivan and got a second head-smacking from the Shaman's Rod as it batted another Ooze. Only two were left now. The blow left Garet on his knees.

            "Garet!" Ivan yelped, taking down the Oozes with Plasma, barely giving it a thought. "By the god of thunder…Garet, I'm so sorry!"

            Isaac heard this, and turned to see Ivan kneeling on the ground beside Garet, and Zoe and Mia finishing the last of the Rats. Isaac hurried over, looking curiously at Ivan.

            "We've never fought so many enemies before," Ivan mused. "It's almost as though a trap of some sort has been set." Again as though on cue, nearly a dozen tall, menacing figures began to charge from the mountains.

            "What are they?" Zoe asked, fear edging into her voice as she and Mia finished.

            "Lizard Men," Mia said, her voice hard.

            "I swear…that boy is prophetic," Garet said, pulling himself to his feat unsteadily. "Bad days all around."

            The five Adepts formed a waiting line as the Lizard Men charged.

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Vil: end chapter nineteen! CLIFFHANGER! Review with an actual comment for more!