Disclaimer: I only own my plot, the cats, and any other characters you don't know. Bladity blah blah.
Note: Sorry I took so long to update but I lost interest for a while. That seems to happen a lot. Then I was looking at my file for the first time in like half a year and saw that I had new reviews and that they were positive ones at that. Thank you people for helping me get out of my funk. I will try to make irregular, though faster than the last one, installments, and if I get into a rhythm I'll also attempt to get back into my HP/ Outsiders story. Wish me luck and please keep reviewing me because you have now idea how much those positive reviews brightened my day. You all rock!
Chapter 3: Pond Sludge
There is only one-way to describe traveling through space and time: sickening. It's like being attacked by a miasma of colors and indescribable extremes while gravity is trying to pull you in every direction at once. If wasn't bad enough, just when it became accepted that the feeling would never stop, it did. Now, you would think that this would be a good thing, but alas…no. Not when you're spit out of a dimensional vortex, a rip in the fabric of reality, nearly a hundred feet above a muck covered pond, and then gravity decides to make up its mind and you plunge into cold, and might I add gross, water.
"If we were Wiccan, we might actually believe this was our fault." Spat Michele, surfacing in the tepid water with a rather large amount of goo on her head, latching onto Kismet, her now very dirty kitty. The other cats were already making their way to the rocky shore. "I mean this is a perfect example of karma backfiring and that stupid rule of 'anything-you-do-will-come-back-to-you-times-three' crap they dish out."
"Then it's a good thing we're not Wiccans, isn't it?" replied Leah who was equally covered in the 'diarrheal baby poop' colored pond muck; a little put out that Blizzah had just up and left her there. "Traitor!" She hissed at him getting only a drowsy look and kitty sneeze in her direction.
Lisa said nothing choosing instead to alternately glare at Shroud for his abandoning of her to the pond muck and then glaring at the disgusting substance itself.
Rachel had the worst luck of them all. She appeared to have swallowed some of the ooze and was attempting to cough it up…with minimal success. "Ugghh, gross! This tastes like one of Lisa's experiments," she said in a stage whisper to Leah and Michele. Then under her breath she added, "One of her better ones." Unfortunately for her, her under her breath abilities were not at their best after inhaling the stagnant water.
Lisa, having heard that last part, picked up one of her boots, which was floating in front of her, having come of some time in the process of falling or surfacing, and lobbed it at Rachel's head. She missed spectacularly and the shoe landed a good ten feet behind Rachel and quite a bit to the left, resulting in a masculine grunt of pain and…a masculine grunt of pain?
All four girls turned as if one, in the direction of the noise only to find themselves being watched by the very people that they had come to find. The only problem was, from the look of their surroundings, this was neither where nor when they were supposed to find them.
An awkward silence settled as the two groups; one consisting of four soaked witches, the other of nine strangers, stared in helpless silence and disbelief at one another. The silence on both sides could be attributed to shock and it didn't seem that anyone was going to break it. Then again, if you had just seen four girls and their strange beasts plummet from a Technicolor rift in the sky you'd probably be speechless too.
Unfortunately for both of the groups the monster that had previously been slumbering under the water's depths had been roused from its monotonous existence by the abrupt arrival of the girls and chose this time to make its presence known. It propelled itself to the surface with all the blundering grace of someone on a broomstick for the first time and extended its huge mass of tentacles towards the first living being it came into contact with… which, wouldn't you know it, was still Frodo.
The longer tentacles had whipped over the heads of the girls and made a bee line straight for the unfortunate little hobbit; so either Frodo was just REALLY unlucky or the Watcher in the water could sense that he was carrying the One Ring. Oh goody.
The attack produced somewhat positive results however, as both groups were jogged out of their inaction and back into their senses.
Michele, realizing that she and her friends were still in a massive amount of danger due to them having never actually removed themselves from the lake, quickly put up a rough magical barrier that would hold long enough to allow them all to reach the shoreline. Once there they would then be able to join the Fellowship, for that was the other group, in freeing Frodo. It wouldn't do anyone any good if they were all killed before their little journey ever began and they certainly couldn't help Frodo if they didn't save themselves first.
With that sentiment it mind Rachel led the others towards the shore, skillfully weaving between, under, and around the waving tentacles, as well as those fighting to free their captured friend. When they had climbed a suitable distance up the rocky beach, they turned back to watch the fight.
Quickly taking stock of the situation, Michele yelled to her friends, over the sounds of the battle, to start firing stunning spells at the monster. They immediately turned their wands at the creature's base and at the waving limbs that were still wrapped around the unlucky hobbit, and none of them had to look to know that while they were bombarding the monster with spells Michele was raising a more permanent magical shield to protect the one that they were freeing and the humans hacking at the monster with swords back in the lake.
Calls of "Stupefy!" rang out with barely a pause in between as both sides went about their task with serious faces; not even Lisa daring to make a smart remark about "size" of the creature's appendages, which was really unheard of.
They were using stunning spells to ensure that they didn't harm the very ones they were trying to protect but it was slower. Using eviscerating spells would have been faster but they'd kick themselves if they misfired and ended up with "steaming pile o'hobbit". Seconds later their persistence paid off and Frodo fell from the Watcher's limp tentacles into one of the waiting human's arms. None of the girls could tell for sure whether it was Boromir or Aragorn, but whoever he was he flashed them a grateful look before ducking into the still-open doors of the Mines of Moria with the rest of the Fellowship.
Sharing one last meaningful glance that clearly relayed their frustration of the situation to one another, the four witches called for their cats to follow them and followed the Fellowship into the mine.
Barely a few seconds later, the Watcher shrugged off the last of the effects of the stunning spells and waddled its way to the mine doors. That in itself was enough to paint a picture of just how powerful the creature really was. It usually took at least a few minutes for anything to recover from the sheer amount of stunning spells that it had been hit with. The spell itself was not very powerful as spells go, but even the weakest spell had lasting effects when repeatedly striking the same target without reprieve.
When the giant squid-like creature reached the doors and couldn't locate the chewy humanoid center it flew into a rage and tried to rip the roof off of the cave by tearing off the doors. It only half worked; the doors came off, but instead of revealing its prey, the roof of the entrance collapsed, ironically saving the beings trapped within.
Once the dust had mostly cleared on the other side of the cave-in, a soft word was spoken and a softly glowing light penetrated the darkness… leaving the two groups in much the same state they were in immediately prior to the monster's attack; they were still wet and they were still staring. The stare held very little suspicion on the Fellowships' part now, that particular emotion having been smothered somewhat when the girls had helped them fend off the creature, instead conveying a sense of curiosity at who about who they were and how their presence would effect their quest.
Just when the girls were starting to believe that they were going to have to take the initiative and break the silence themselves, Gandalf, for it could have been no other, heaved a great sigh and directed a look at them that was very reminiscent to the one that Dumbledore used on those students that were unfortunate enough to be caught doing something that they really weren't supposed to be doing; a look that these four girls were rather familiar with. "Well my dears," he began, that eerily familiar twinkle in his eyes, "you're late."