Disclaimer: I think it gets pretty redundant after a while to keep saying that I don't own the characters used in this story. But … once again … just because someone will probably try to sue me if I don't credit Cate Tiernan … I don't own the Sweep series. As if I would be posting on if I really did … but anywho … the song belongs to Rachael Yamagata. That's a funny last name. (starts to laugh) Haha … funny name … lol, okay, on with the thanks and story. Read and review!

moon-faery69: Lol, sorry about the cliffhangers … again … and again … things are just picking up really quickly in the story and I want to end each chapter in a way that makes you all want to read the next one :O Please don't get mad at me! I'm trying my best, I swear!

Mike: Hehe, thanks, Mad-Man :D And why are you hardly ever online anymore? I command you to be online so I can talk to you!

Raynornlimegreen: Once again … sorry for the cliffhangers! Please don't hate me! It just makes you anticipate the next chapter more, doesn't it? Hmm … maybe I should work on that. Anywho, keep reviewing or I'll be very sad :( The chapter ends at kind of a pivotal point, but it's not really a cliffhanger … I guess … it's a mini-cliffhanger … definitely not the caliber of the one from the last few chapters, I promise :D

MIDNIGHT-PIXIE: As they say in German, danke! I love reviews :D So finish the story and give me more!

sunshine-faery: Okay, yes, you didn't review this story, but I feel the need to ask you a couple questions about the review you posted on "Sweep: The Random Parodies". You've reviewed it before and always said good things about it. It's on your list of favorite stories, for the love of everything holy. So … yeah, not really seeing where it is you're coming from when you say that I stink at writing. Are you bipolar or does your memory just really suck?

Part XXV: Battalion

I think about how it might have been
We'd spend our days traveling
It's not that I don't understand you
It's not that I don't want to be with you
But you only wanted me
The way you wanted me

Morgan

I felt strangely calm, more calm than I probably should have, given the situation. I didn't know what it was; I was walking down a grassy path in the Irish countryside in broad daylight with the leader of a clan of demons who had agreed to have his soldiers perform a ritual to strip me of my powers. I should have been quaking in my shoes, searching desperately for a way to escape this fate that I had brought upon myself.

But I wasn't. As a calm breeze rippled around us, blowing my hair back gently, and my feet mechanically moved one foot in front of the other down the path, I wasn't thinking about the Diobhail or Muireadhach or Hunter or any of my friends. I was thinking about Mary K.

I remembered how, when I was in eighth grade and she was in sixth, our grandmother, affectionately dubbed "Grams", had passed away from leukemia. We had flown to Chicago for the funeral, and I remembered how quiet Mary K had been at the service. She hadn't said anything while Mom cried, Dad tried to console her, and I, of course, was bawling my eyes out. At the wake, I had asked Mary K why she hadn't been crying, but I think I sort of already knew the answer … even back then. It was too weird for her. It was too much change for an eleven-year-old to comprehend. She just looked lost. I remembered her taking my hand and whispering, "Morgan? Don't ever change."

I couldn't help but feel that I had dreadfully let her down as I reminisced on that painful memory. "Don't worry," I whispered, almost hoping that she could hear me. "No more changes … not anymore."

Muireadhach looked over at me curiously. I guess he had heard me whispering to myself like a crazy person.

"Why the long face, Miss Riordan?" he asked, his gruff voice sounding awkward when he was asking a question considered caring in some circles. "You are about to save your friends and your future, and yet you appear glum."

"I'm about to have my powers stripped by otherworldly demons," I said shortly. "Do you expect me to be jumping for joy?"

He didn't answer. I just looked to my feet as we kept walking. The swishing of Muireadhach's robes and the occasional twitter of some bird or other were the only sounds that I could hear. It was strangely silent.

I had been about to look up at Muireadhach and ask him how much farther we had to walk when suddenly I received my answer. I had lifted my eyes up from the ground and seen something that took my breath away.

We were back at the Ballynigel cemetery.

I couldn't seem to talk. I looked to Muireadhach in confusion, narrowing my eyes against the blinding sun.

"What … but how, we were just -"

He smiled in a gruesome sort of way. "Oh, please. You didn't really think that you had made it all the way to the coast, did you?"

I stared between him and the cemetery.

"And … it's bigger."

"Of course," Muireadhach said simply. "Not all of these house actual bodies, mind. But a tribute to all who died here … that is what this cemetery is. Death has built their monuments for them."

The Ballynigel cemetery that I had visited before was not the one that lay in front of me, but I could see my grandmother's grave in the distance. Now, the graves were spread out, and there were thousands more of them, covering the nearby landscape like macabre lawn ornaments. Mausoleums and tombs were hidden in the shadows of the trees, which suddenly seemed dark and foreboding. I could see names written in stone above the doors. Johnson. MacLeon. O'Connell. Graves and tombs and mausoleums that hadn't been there before were now plain to my eyes.

And the Diobhail. They were there, and I could see almost every single one of them. Milling around the cemetery like it was their hideout … which I reminded myself that it was. This was the place that they had chosen to watch us. I shivered slightly, remembering when Hunter, Sky, the others, and I had come here to search for any clues about the Diobhail before. They had probably been watching us the whole time, hidden beneath their glamours and illusory magick.

I must have stopped walking, because suddenly I felt a tug of something invisible behind my back that pushed me forward, following Muireadhach like a dog on a leash.

"Come," he said steadily. "It's almost time."

So I will head out alone
And hope for the best
And we can hang our heads down
As we skip the goodbyes

Alexis

The television in my room was tuned to Comedy Central, but my eyes weren't glued to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as they normally would have been. I was watching Morgan walking towards a cemetery, and I bit my lip.

"Morgan, no …" I whispered. "It's a trap, you know it is …"

I groaned with sheer frustration. This hurt so much. I was watching her walk into her death and there was nothing I could do about it.

You can tell the world
What you want them to hear
I've got nothing left to lose, my dear
So, I'm up for the little white lies
But you and I
Know the reason why
I'm gone, and you're still there
I'm gone, and you're still there
I'm gone, and you're still there

Killian

Judging by the sour looks that Bree was sending my way with sheer malevolence, I supposed she was mad that I wasn't worrying about Morgan as much as everyone else was. I really wanted to prove her wrong, as well; forgive me if I'm not as incapable of dealing with massive emotion as the English boy Giomanach.

He was a wreck, hyperventilating for all that he was worth. "Oh, Goddess, oh, Goddess, oh, Goddess, oh -"

Athar hit him on the arm. I had been about two seconds away from doing that myself. "Hunter, that isn't helping," she pointed out. "We need to find Morgan before she -"

"How can we trust you on this?" Robbie demanded. "You wanted her to do this!"

I was starting to see how this could end up transforming, once again, into the shouting match that Mike and I had walked in on less than ten minutes ago. Athar looked at him furiously.

"I supported her right to have her powers stripped, if need be," she said through gritted teeth. "I never suggested that going to Muireadhach and the Diobhail would be the appropriate solution." She bit her lip. "And it doesn't matter now. We're too distracted to wage a successful rescue attempt. Chasing after her now would be suicide."

"So, what, we're just going to sit here and let them take her?" Robbie cried.

Athar glared at him. "If you want to go raging into their camp without any protection or, apparently, common sense, then be my guest! But we can't go against them! For all we know, there could be thousands of them there just waiting for us to show up!"

"It makes sense, though, doesn't it?" Bree whispered in a melancholy tone. "They have powerful magick … they're probably more than willing to strip her of her powers."

"If they don't kill her first," Giomanach said grimly.

At this, Mike took me aside.

"Killian, we have to do something."

I scoffed. "Like what? Athar does have a point. We have no way to defend ourselves against them, no way to rescue her -"

"We're blood witches," Mike said firmly. "Isn't that enough?"

I sighed. "Mike, I may not be the most responsible person on the face of the earth, but I do have some common sense. When she said suicide, she wasn't kidding!"

"Killian, for all we know, they could be torturing her by now, or worse. Sky wants to wait to come up with a plan, but there's not time. We need to get her back now before something happens!"

I could see the desperation in his eyes, and, as unwilling as I was to admit it, he had a very valid point. How long could we expect Morgan to hold her own against those creatures, if in fact she was even trying to fight them? What would happen if they were left alone to have their way with her? I didn't doubt even for a moment that they wanted to do more than strip her of her powers. Judging from Giomanach and Athar's descriptions, it sounded quite as if they would just skip straight to killing her.

I'll buy a magazine searching for your face
From coast to coast
Or wherever I find my place
I'll track you on the radio,
And I'll sign your list in a different name
But as close as I get to you
It's not the same

Sky

"I can't help but be a little surprised at Killian," Raven said quietly as she sat down on the bed.

"Yes," I said, quite surprised myself. "He's quite a public speaker. He even had me convinced by the end of that impromptu pep talk."

Somehow, Killian had managed to string together a … speech, of sorts, I suppose it could be called. I sighed. He had won Bree, Robbie, and Hunter over quite easily, and I had little choice to concede to the idea of immediately going after Morgan. I had no idea how we would go about doing it … even less of an idea of whether or not, in any universe, we could be successful. And yet we were leaving in less than five minutes.

"Are you sure you want Robbie and Bree and I there?" Raven asked quietly. "Won't we just be a distraction?"

"We need you there," I said softly, brushing back a strand of her hair. "I need you there." I looked at her for a moment, and she just looked back at me, our gazes meeting.

"The scary part is that I sort of understand where he's coming from," I whispered. "Muireadhach, I mean. Morgan killed his entire clan in the future … his family, his entire race … I can't imagine that happening to me, and yet … I know exactly what I would do if it ever did. If I thought someone was going to hurt you …" I broke off as tears came to my eyes. "There is nothing I wouldn't do to protect you."

Raven looked close to tears herself.

"Let's hope it never comes to that." I just nodded as I tried to blink away my tears. The thought that I could lose her tonight, or any of the others, for that matter, was too much to bear … but this was something we needed to do. She leaned in and kissed me softly, and that moment seemed to last forever. It just felt like an instant later, though, when I heard Hunter calling us back downstairs.

"Ready?" Raven whispered.

"Not in the slightest."

So I will head out alone
And hope for the best
We can pat ourselves on the back
And say that we tried
And if one of us makes it big
We can spill our regrets
And talk about how the love never dies

Bree

"Hey, Robbie?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think this is it?"

"Do I think what is what?"

"The … last battle. Like on TV? The one where you know that if you walk into it you're not walking out but you walk in anyway?"

"… It might be."

"Do you think we're all going to make it?"

"… I don't think it's … I don't think that's possible. We interrupt their ritual … and they make sure that as many of us as possible aren't allowed to leave."

"It's so weird, you know? We might never get to graduate. We might never get to go to college. We might never get to do all the stuff that's supposed to be coming for us."

"I know."

"Do you remember that personality test we had to take for career week in eighth grade? Remember how one of the questions on it was 'How much would you be willing to sacrifice for someone you love?' And how the answers ranged from ten dollars to your life?"

"I remember."

"I never thought I'd have to take that risk. But … now that it's here … I'm not scared. I might die tonight. We all might die tonight. And … I'm not scared. We're doing this to save Morgan, and … I want to save her more than I want to make sure that I stay alive. … Is that weird? I mean, is that, like, totally out of line with human emotions?"

"… No, Bree. It's not weird at all."

But you and I know the reason why
I'm gone, and you're still there
I'm gone, and you're still there
I'm gone, and you're still there

Hunter met us all back down in the entrance hall. There was a kind of surreal silence around us. Mike and Killian looked a little scared but determined. I really admired them; if I had a sibling and it was them in trouble …

"Ready to go?" Hunter asked, his voice tight.

Sky whispered "yes", and Robbie just nodded mutely.

"Good. Let's go."

So steal the show and do your best
To cover the tracks that I have left
I wish you well
And hope you find
Whatever you're looking for
I might have changed my mind
But you've only shown me the door

So I will head out alone
And hope for the best
We can pat ourselves on the back
And say that we tried
And if one of us makes it big
We can spill our regrets
And talk about how the love never dies