When everyone awoke, with curses, screams and whimpers, Corbin had made Hilary work as his maid.
"Hai Corbin-sama." Hilary tried not to glare. "But at least do something about Kenny!" she pointed to the fainted young genius, still strapped to the bull's-eye, a knife embedded inches from his head.
"Tsk, tsk. Servants should know their place. Now…" he looked around the room spotted Ian and snapped his fingers.
"NO!" Hilary cried, another snap of the fingers and Ian jerked to a stop over the nails.
"My tea? Or your little boyfriend is next." Hilary could only nod and run from the room.
"For god's sake let the boy go!" Yelled Calcifer, struggling at his bonds.
"Hmm, I could use a fanner boy when he wakes up." a wave of the hand and Kenny flopped to the floor.
"You're a twisted bastard." spat Spencer, if only he could get out of the chains, then he would only have the sharks below him to contend with.
"Why thank you." Corbin sneered.
"How the fuck did Nix get tangled up with the likes of you!?" Ian cried.
"Magic, her powers are far greater than my own, but she doesn't use them, such a waste…and to claim them for myself, I kill her or she hands them over willingly."
"If you lay so much as a molecule on her you'll be dead in the next breath!" Spencer yelled, if only he could get to the flick-knife in his sleeve pocket and pick the lock before he lost feeling in his wrists, his thought was disrupted when he sneezed.
"Oh please, you're chained by the wrists over a tank of sharks, you're in no position to make threats Blondie."
"You won't get away with this!" yelled Ray, one of the hyenas trying to jump up at him.
The door opened and Hilary stepped in, tea in hand.
"Your tea, Corbin-sama." she said, placing it on his armrest and bowing.
"Learning your place I see, good girl."
Everyone stared at the brunette, Kai yelling but only to have it muffled.
Spencer was about to give up hope when he felt a pole of some sort support his weight under his feet, a familiar warmth washed over him.And if you asked him how he came to believe it was a certain witch, he wouldn't be able to explain it in a million years.
'Nix? Whatever she's doing I hope it works.' he thought, trying to get to his sleeve pocket with his teeth.
"My this is truly entertaining, I have the two top blading teams in the world writing before me, a pretty little maid, and it won't be long before I have my pretty little bride and her power too."
"And after, what good is power with nothing to use it on?" asked Ray, the hyenas giving up for now.
Kai and Bryan were going ballistic.
"I have many enemies that I will deal with once I have Nikita's power, starting with that vampire friend of yours. And then I have some treasure hunting in mind."
"Petty excuse if I do say so Corbin." Nix appeared in the middle off the room. "We all have enemies, but we don't go round destroying them."
"You make things all too easy my dear."
"Maybe so, but if I go down, I go down fighting."
"But you're blind, easy pickings."
"Corbin Lansing, I challenge you to a battle!" Nix bellowed.
"I repeat, you are blind."
"Don't mean squat and you know it."
"What battle? Magic? Swords?"
"Beybattle." Nix said. "One on one, sudden death round, winner take all."
"Fine, I'll humour you with your beybattle."
"And you're willing to sacrifice your eyesight to be free?" Spencer remembered asking her yesterday and her certain reply.
He dreaded to think what she would sacrifice this time round.
'Nix, don't do it, please.' he thought as Corbin rearranged the room with a small spell.
"Release my friends, your kink streak is disgusting." She couldn't even begin to consider her sixth sense when it came to magic.
"They're not going anywhere."
Nix motioned with her hands, then she waved one again and all the locks came undone, the tank and nail bed disappearing as Ian and Spencer landed in pained crouches, Max and Tyson landing in a heap.
"I'm sorry you lot got involved." Nix said to them. "Don't try to leave this room. No one can get out or in, someone get Sanguinex out of that trunk."
"NIX!" Bryan's frightened cry split the air.
"Anyone moves and the kid dies."
Nix stood slowly and relaxed her stance, a bolt of anger heating her blood. Remembering that stealth spells had their uses.
'Tala, please do something.' she pleaded.
He didn't need to, Bryan bit down on Corbin's knife hand- hard.
The fuchsia-haired man dropped the blade and Bryan ran for Nix. Now untied, Calcifer swooped in and flew off again with the knife in his talons.
"Fry bird!" he spat sending a dark ball of magic the hawk's way. His spell hitting true and sending the hawk crashing down with a shriek.
"CALCIFER!" cried Nix, Hilary running to find him. "We battle now Corbin!"
"When you're ready." he drawled, locking a blade the same colour as his hair into his launcher.
Nix did the same, feeling there was something slightly different about her blade.
"I upgraded it for you, Zapdoborg needed it." said Bryan.
"Thanks Kuzzy, now lets let it rip!" she cried out pulling the cord with a great yank "And we'll see what this baby can do! Go Zapdoborg!"
Corbin's blade went on the defence, sparks flying as Nix's white blade went through a barrage of attack manoeuvres. Images from the falcon's own eyes projecting themselves in Nix's mind.
"Come on Nixy, you're holding back." cackled Corbin, attacking Zapdoborg with moves of his own.
Nix didn't think he'd turn out to be a good blader. She growled, blocking his blows and trying to land one of her own. She was losing this battle, she didn't need eyes to see that.
'He has to have a weakness, I'm running out of energy and Tala's running out of time before the spell wears off!'
"Zapdoborg! Stroblitz!"
"I thought that was your move?" said Ian to Bryan.
"More of a family move I'm told."
"Oh please, I've had paper cuts worse than this. Attack Xorian!"
A great ogre rose out of the blade, giant mallet in hand.
"Take flight!" Nix yelled to her bit beast as the ogre brought his mallet crashing down with the force of an avalanche.
"Shouldn't we do something?" asked Kai steadying his balance as the room shook.
"I don't know. He has the power to stop us in our tracks!" cried Bryan. "Nix! You have one move left!"
"I do?"
"Whatever it is woman use it!" cried Tala's voice behind her.
"So that's where your pretty redhead friend disappeared to." Corbin sneered.
Next thing anyone could register, Tala - fully visible- was flat on his back, out cold on the marble floor, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth.
"Tala!" Kai ran over to his friend and checked him over, breathing ragged. "He needs the hospital, quick."
Nix's blood boiled even further.
"Corbin, your arse is mine!" she cried. "Zapdoborg! Give it all you've got! Rouge Blue Lightning!!"
"Get down!" yelled Spencer, pulling Bryan and Ian's small forms to the floor as a bolt of blue electrical energy cracked over their heads.
"I can see why she calls it Rouge." said Hilary, returning with a limp Calcifer in her hands. Everyone stared at Corbin, who was cackling in hysterics.
"Stupid girl! Earth absorbs lightning! And you call yourself a witch! Earth Breaker Xorian!"
"Zapdoborg! Lightning Missile!"
"Nix! You're insane!"
"Why, what's she doing?" asked Spencer.
"Lightning Missile's her ultimate move." Bryan's voice sounded grim.
Spencer's heart clenched as Zapdoborg gave a death cry and launched herself at the ogre. Earth and lightning collided, filling the room with rubble, dust and even smoke.
"Nix! Nikita!" Bryan cried.
"Videlicet aer." coughed a voice and the air eventually cleared.
Nix was kneeling among the rubble, blade in shards at her feet, Xorian's hammer behind her and Corbin laughing.
"You lost Nikita. Your power is mine. But since you thought so bravely, I'll let you have a last request."
"Change my cousin back to the way he's meant to be." she said sternly.
"What? You don't want your eyesight back?" Corbin chuckled in surprise. "How noble."
"I won't need it in death will I?" she replied so softly everyone had to strain their ears.
"Nix! No!" cried Spencer and Bryan.
"I'm sorry guys, but a deal's a deal." she turned to them with tear filled eyes.
"All this for power." Spencer growled. 'Boris crashed when the power became too much, why can't this guy?… if only we had found a loophole… that's it!'
"If you're going to kill her at least let us say goodbye!" Hilary cried desperately.
"You have ten minutes." he waved a hand lazily, picking up a book and Bryan grew back to his rightful age with a series of pops.
"Don't leave me Nix!" Bryan cried, throwing his arms around her and sobbing into her shoulder. "I need you."
"I'm sorry Kuzzy. If only there was another way." she sighed.
"Maybe there is." said a soft voice.
"Spencer?"
"Give him what he wants." he said. "Give him your magical energies."
"Have you gone mad?"
Spencer didn't answer, just tilted her head up and pressed their lips together, pouring all his emotions into it and tasting salty tears, both Nix's and his own, feeling his heart breaking when she returned the pressure gently, only to be wrenched away by tendrils of dark magic draining her life slowly.
"Trust me!" he cried.
"Always."
"Nothing's gonna stop me now." shrieked Corbin hysterically.
Spencer's eyes continued to tear, there had to be a way. Then he spotted the hammer.
Maybe...
"Spencer what are you doing!?" cried Kai as Spencer hefted the thing, ready to strike.
"What I do best!" and he brought it down with everything he had, cracking the floor and causing everything to tremble.
Corbin was so focused in his victory he was surprised when the ground shook and toppled him over, giving Nix enough leeway to break loose.
"You know what Corbin. Blind or otherwise." She smirked, "I'd rather…LIVE! Terminus Is Rabies!" she cried, shooting magical energy from her hands.
Corbin absorbed her attack. Like Xorian did Zapdoborg's.
"Yes, yes! Feed me all of your power!"
"Ancient bestia, audite meus rudo, faeneror mihi vestri navitas facio is malum haud magis!" she cried out. A howl of a wolf sounded and the her magic took on an ice blue tint.
"Wolborg, help her -Ah!" Tala hissed, opening a weary eye.
"Guys, how about we help a little witch friend of ours out." smirked Kai.
"Aye aye Capt'n Kai!" cried Tyson, Max and Ray, poised to launch, Ian, Bryan and Spencer did the same.
"Dranzer!"
"Driger!"
"Draciel!"
"Dragoon!"
"Wyborg!"
"Falborg!"
"Seaborg!"
"ATTACK CORBIN!" they all cried, Kenny and Hilary included.
Nix's energy stream now took on every colour of the rainbow, snuffing out Corbin's beam like it was a candle, hitting said guy head on into the wall.
"This is for Tala, Calcifer, and everyone whose lives you made hell!"
"Too much energy! AAH!" were Corbin's last words, as the magic pulled him apart molecule by molecule.
"And energy… well spent." huffed Bryan, calling back his blade. The others doing the same and flopping down for a rest.
"Nix!" Hilary cried, seeing Nix was now surrounded by the surplus energy.
"Per is vox , paro res vox!" she cried, directing it to the ceiling.
Glowing snowflakes fell down on them all, unlocking the trunk Sanguinex was in, healing Tala and Calcifer and putting the ballroom back to rights.
The door crashed open as Nix stopped glowing and crashed to the floor. The remaining dark bladers crashing in.
"Where's Sanguinex?"
Spencer pointed to the now open trunk as Bryan bolted to catch his falling cousin.
"Typical Vampire." tutted Centopath, shaking his linen wrapped head.
Sanguinex was still fast asleep.
"Nix? Nixy?" Bryan felt for a pulse and checked her breathing. "She's alive, let's get her to a sofa." Bryan, having to reajust to his adult sized form again, failed to pick up his unconscious relative. "What are you three doing here?"
"Checking on Sanguinex when Calcifer didn't turn up."
"I was kinda tied up at the time." said Calcifer feebly. "Thanks Hilary."
"Anytime Cal. Come on, some of us still have wrists that need fixing up." said Kai, rubbing his.
"Cup of tea and some sleeping pills while we're at it." said Tala.
Spencer said nothing, but followed, cradling the limp witch in his arms...
Sorry for the late update!