AN: Still don't own a thing.
Also, to commenter crispi1: I'm not going to confirm or deny the involvement of any more planswalkers in the near or far future, because I despise spoilers. That said, yeah, I agree that the three of them would be pretty interesting in particular.
CHAPTER 4 – Timely reinforcements
It didn't take long to get from Dumbledore's office to the front gate, where a small group of students from all three schools were standing, looking at the two figures behind it.
The first was the expected leonid: a tall humanoid figure missing his left eye, with visible feline features, white fur and a platinum blonde mane, clothed with green sashes over a leather and golden armour that looked more ornamental than useful, and the too small white cape of Elspeth draped over a shoulder. He was holding a pole weapon with two half circular heads, one golden and one silvery, propped against his left shoulder. He looked stoic like he often did when not engaging in combat.
The other figure, while decidedly less visible next to the towering leonid, wasn't certainly any less notable: a raven haired woman wearing a golden tiara and a very low cut purple dress that showed both lots of cleavage and her porcelain skin. She looked around with a bored, haughty expression.
If meeting again Ajani after they had fought side by side to free Kaladesh was a nice surprise, Chandra hadn't expected to see Liliana again so soon. Or at all.
Unfortunately for the necromancer, the redhead had a bit of repressed anger to let out.
"You!" shouted Chandra as soon as her eyes met Liliana's "Traitor!"
The transition from calm to blazing hair and fireball flying the woman's way was instantaneous. Ajani's response was just as fast, as he placed his weapon in the fireball way, protecting the necromancer.
"Well met Little Flame," said the leonid in a gruff but warm tone using his moniker for her, completely ignoring the previous attack "Would it be possible to have the gate opened? It's quite a bit chilly out here."
"What's that traitor doing here?" demanded the pyromancer, a hand held up to stop Dumbledore from drenching her again.
"I took the Bolas' offered out from a fight we would have lost anyway," replied Liliana in a calm, cultured tone "I never planned on serving him. Liliana Vess bows to no one, not to demons and certainly not to that overgrown lizard."
Chandra held her fellow planeswalker's gaze for a long minute before nodding and extinguishing her flames.
"Fine," she said "If Jace trusts you I'll follow his lead. But I'm keeping an eye on you."
"Is everything all right, Miss Nalaar?" asked the headmaster deciding that it was ok to speak up.
"Yes headmaster, just a misunderstanding. Those are two of my companions: Ajani Goldmane and Liliana Vess," replied the pyromancer before turning towards the leonid "I guess Jace sent you?"
Dumbledore nodded and willed the gates open.
"That he did," confirmed Ajani getting closer, his weapon held in a nonthreatening manner "He told me you got yourself stuck in a tournament and need representation within the judges."
"Am I to deduce you'll be Miss Nalaar's judge, ?" inquired Dumbledore in a genial tone.
"That I'll be," said the imposing planeswalker nodding "I'll try to be impartial."
"Good. Will you be needing separate accommodations or simply adding two extra rooms to Miss Nalaar's quarters will suffice?"
As soon as the door had closed behind their backs, Chandra zeroed her burning gaze on Liliana and asked: "What are you doing here? I just needed one judge."
"Relax Chandra, Jace thought it would be safer for both of us with me being here," replied the raven haired woman.
"Safer?"
"The wards on the castle prevents planeswalking directly in, which would help protecting Liliana from Bolas' clutches when he comes knocking," explained Ajani sitting down close to the fire "And having her on hand if things go sour might save our lives. Jace doesn't trust the headmaster one bit. Also, we can keep an eye on her."
"Your faith in me is simply startling dear," commented Liliana in a huff draping herself on the other couch before turning to Chandra "Speaking of keeping an eye, why would someone trap you in anything, let alone some kind of magic contest?"
"I don't have the faintest idea," admitted the pyromancer leaning against a wall "It seems that they didn't want me but a certain Rose Potter, which was incidentally my birth name before being adopted on Kaladesh. Also, some weird guy said I was famous and called me some hyphenated title, the Girl-Who-Lived."
Both the other planeswalkers assumed a pensive expression at that.
"I guess that hoping you'd know anything else on the matter is foolish, right?" asked Liliana shaking her head "I'll ask around tomorrow."
"There are ghosts in the school if you find relating with the living a chore," snipped Chandra.
"I'll look in the library, you ask the faculty Chandra," said Ajani getting up then stopped when he noticed the other two's disbelieving stares "What? I don't like it either, but we all know that we'll have no library the other way round."
"That's true," admitted the pyromancer "I don't have the best track record when it comes to libraries and archives... But maybe it's best if I talk with the students and Liliana with the faculty and ghosts. I already have an inlay with a girl."
"Very well, ghosts are more affable than brats anyway," shrugged the necromancer "On a side note, I need to get a couch like this one for my manor, it's pretty comfortable."
Lunch turned out to be an interesting affair. Since around an hour had passed after the newcomers' arrival, the whole school had now heard about the "humanoid, talking lion" and had turned up to see it. Said leonid was less than amused.
"I take it my kind isn't native of this plane?" asked Ajani ignoring the stares while he continued to eat his meat-based lunch with his hands.
Refined he might be, but nobody on Naya had taught him etiquette. Not that anybody on Naya cared about table manners.
"Nope," trilled the little blonde girl sitting on his left while petting and stroking his tail.
Chandra would have laughed at the scene if she hadn't been occupied listening as Hermione rattled off facts, hypothesis and trivia about the Girl-Who-Lived legend. Liliana had no such reservations.
"Can you please leave my tail be, little girl?" asked Ajani, not really hoping it to work.
"Nope," trilled again the girl in an airy tone "It's remarkably fluffy. I'd be willing to trade for your mane though, it looks even fluffier."
"I dreaded so."
"Miss Nalaar?" asked the stern professor from the morning to get the pyromancer's attention "I wanted to ask you to stop by my office before dinner to schedule your lectures."
With her message said, she departed not waiting for a reply.
"Lectures?" wondered both Hermione and Liliana, though the second sounded decidedly more sceptical.
"Yes, I agreed to teach whoever's interested about the Multiverse and planeswalkers," explained Chandra ignoring the woman's tone "It turns out they never heard of other planes."
"You're kidding right?" asked Liliana raising a delicate eyebrow "You're the furthest thing from an educator that I can think of, short of employing an undead. You have no patience, are terribly short-tempered and more than a bit ignorant on the finer details of the subject."
"Professor Binns was a ghost," chimed in the blonde stroking Ajani's tail "Dreadfully boring and fascinating at the same time. He retired last year (1)."
"And professor Snape is very biased, unfair and vindictive," added Hermione in a pensive tone.
The necromancer stared at both girls for a long moment before turning to Chandra and saying: "Carry on dear, you'll fit in absolutely well with the faculty."
"They want me for what?" asked a barely awake Chandra staring at Hermione from her quarters doorway.
Of course, just like the day before, she had forgone all clothing except her boots and gauntlet.
"Weighting of the wands," replied the other girl mechanically "Do you really always open the door dressed like that?"
"Only if I was sleeping. Be thankful it was me and not Liliana doing it. Now, what in the blazes is a weighting of the wands?"
"I'm not actually sure, but it's official tournament business so you and are required to attend."
"Fine, let me get dressed," sighed Chandra in defeat before turning around and shouting "Wake up Ajani, you have judge-y stuff to do!"
Fifteen minutes later, both Chandra and Ajani entered the smallish room they had been guided to by Hermione, who in turn was now standing around awkwardly, unsure what to do.
As soon as the pyromancer came into view, an older looking blond woman wearing acid green clothes and the singularly most horrible pair of glasses Chandra had ever seen came rushing towards her and said: "Miss Potter, it's a pleasure meeting you at last! I'm Rita Skeeter, a reporter. Would you kindly answer some questions?"
That said, and without waiting a reply, she grabbed the bewildered redhead's arm and dragged her towards a corner of the room.
"Now Rose, can I call you Rose? Of course I can," rapidly said Rita taking out a notebook and a flamboyant quill "There has been much speculation on your whereabouts in the last thirteen years, where have you been? And who murdered your foster family?"
"Wait wait wait," said the planeswalker raising a hand "First, I go by Chandra Nalaar so no, you most definitely cannot call me Rose. And second, my mom is very well and unmurdered, thank you very much. I saw her no later than last month."
"But how? The Dursleys' bodies have been identified after that huge fire."
Chandra felt that her confusion could only grow.
"What are you even talking about?"
Rita looked ready to demand more answers when Ajani's paw-hand closed on the quill that had kept writing even while nobody talked, crushing it.
"The interview is finished Miss Skeeter," he announced in a tone that promised retribution "Chandra's life has been hard, I'm sure she doesn't feel like recounting it."
The leonid then motioned with his head towards a table where the other champions and judges had assembled. Both planeswalkers moved to their expected places and the ceremony started.
It consisted in an old man looking at the champions' wands and trying them to see if they worked properly. This, of course, rapidly proved to be a problem as the man demanded Chandra's wand after deeming the blonde champion's in working condition.
"I have no wand," she simply replied, causing a fair share of surprised reactions.
"Preposterous!" protested the Sarkhan Vol lookalike that seemed to be completely against her participation "Are you trying to tell that you, a fourteen years old witch with no formal schooling, are so adept at wandless magic that you carry no wand?"
"Calm down Igor, please," intervened Dumbledore "It's obvious that where Miss Nalaar grew up, wands aren't in use. Do you perhaps use any other kind of focus?"
"No, I channel magic by will alone," explained the pyromancer shrugging "Well, will and a fair amount of emotion, plus my gauntlet helps with stability."
"Remarkable," commented the huge woman sitting with the judges, sincere admiration in her tone.
"I'll believe it when I'll see it!" said the Sarkhan Vol lookalike with a bark of derisive laughter.
Chandra nodded and created a smallish fireball in her right hand. She then proceeded to juggle with it. It was really nothing, a parlor trick. She seriously doubted such a thing could even bring down one of Liliana's minions, and she wasn't thinking of the massive, sturdy necromantic constructs but the common garden zombies she used as rank and file. And yet, judging by the assembly's astonished faces, it was some grand feat of magic. She idly wondered what they'd do when she brought out the bigger, flashier spells.
Now that I think about this, I don't exactly know what they expect of me in this tournament... Better see if Hermione knows later.
The rest of the ceremony went smoothly after her magic was deemed fine. The only other hiccup came when the Skeeter woman insisted on taking photos of the champions for her article and tried her best to place Chandra in the center of every single one of them, while her photographer did his best to focus on the other female champion. Ajani simply watched on the scene from a corner and chuckled.
It turns out that, as with everything that was inherent to that plane, Hermione was a well of knowledge. Chandra was ready to swear that she knew vedalken artificers that would kill for a memory like hers, while Liliana made a grim remark about keeping her well away from a necroalchemist named Ludevic. The bushy haired witch, after recovering from the necromancer's disturbing comment and subsequent explanation, told them that the Triwizard tournament was a contest that pitted gifted youths against magical creatures, hazardous conditions and, oftentimes, each other in three tasks designed to test magic as much as intellect and bravery, and that could very well result in the loss of lives. Or rather, it most often than not resulted in at least one champion turning up dead or as well as, and that was why it had been discontinued in the first place. To Chandra and Liliana, those sounded a bit too close to the trials of Amonketh gods for comfort, but Hermione assured them that any task in that particular tournament should have been at lowered difficulty because "nobody wants to see you four dead."
"I'd like to disagree," said the necromancer in a far too jolly tone "The Multiverse is full of people that want Chandra Nalaar's head on a silver platter."
"Apparently even on planes I've never even heard of... " bitterly grumbled said pyromancer.
Notes: 1. Regarding Binns, it will all be explained later on, I promise, just bear with the apparent incongruences until then.