-Flashback-

"Let her go." Danny fiercely commanded.

The creature's laughed. "You mean her?" The Boss asked pointing at Sammy. "What? Is she your lover? A little young to be settling down don't you think?"

Danny sneered. "No. No I'm not her lover."

"Then why want her?"

"She's-"

"I'm his master. I am the princess of… of… of the Thorn." Sammy said.

Danny stared at her with confusion. He got the idea. "Ya… Yes! More will come after you for the lady."

"That's right. Let me go or you and your followers will parish." Sammy nobly said.

/This is bullshit./ The Boss looked interested. "And what if we handed you over for a reward? Say… 100 k?"

Sam and Danny looked at each other in shock. Now they were defiantly not going to let Sammy go...

Amanda took deep breaths as she watched the pointless conversation go on. The Boss let Sammy go, only to be picked up and dragged away. Danny ran after her only to fail... big time. "Would you like to come along?" one of the minions laughed scooping up Danny and taking him in the opposite direction.

"DANNY!" Sam screamed in the distance.

"SAM!" he yelled back.

Amanda rolled her eyes. /You'd think they were lovers.../ She thought to herself. The creatures slowly retreated taking a few things with them. Amanda stared at nothing taking meditating breaths until her eyelids began to fall. She stopped thinking all together.../Relax...relax/ She fell asleep...

The dust around the fallen building was just beginning to settle, when a bright flash of yellow glimmered, suddenly, against the setting of the purple-black sky. For a moment, the light hovered over the largest mound of rubble, kicking up an even bigger cloud of dust.

The light faded into its background, reveling a girl of about 16, whose body shivered as her feet made contact with a large piece of broken building. The girl was known as Riley. She stood at about 5 feet 3 inches high, with short blonde hair that hovered right above her shoulders, and determined blue eyes. In her left hand, she clutched a small, knife-like object.

Blue eyes scanned the deserted, destroyed clearing. "Damn." Riley growled, "They got away..." She stamped her foot in frustration, mumbling incoherent curse words.

She gripped her knife harder, and clenched her teeth. "Wait..." She said, aloud. "Where are the kids..."

Jumping down from her perch, Riley began her ground search. "If those bats got them, they're screwed." She trailed off as her eyes sharply caught a body-shaped object, lying under a heap of rubble.

"Well, at least one of them made it..." She thought, bitterly.

Carefully, she picked her way across the fallen battlefield, and keeled beside the body, brushing off the dust with her fingertips.

"Sleeping?!" She asked, incredulously, checking the body's pulse. The girl showed no signs of injury, and her pulse was pretty normal. At least, Riley thought it was a girl. What boy had long brown hair that came nearly down his waist?

'Ahhhh-manda? I think.' Riley said, mentally, 'yeah...the mental one.' Riley looked up, scanning the area again. 'Where are the other two?'

"Oh, shit." she said, aloud this time, pulling Amanda out of the rubble. 'Damn, she is OUT.' Riley shook her head. "Nevermind that, now. We have to find the other two before those bats eat their faces off!"

In the distance, Riley could hear the faint sound of police sirens, compete with the faint flashes of red and blue lights.

"Ahh, shit." Riley said, attempting to pull the still-sleeping Amanda to her feet. She didn't even stir. "Wake up!" She said, pulling on her arm. She still did not wake, even as the sounds of the cop-cars drew closer.

"Fuck this." riley put her hands on Amanda's shoulder, right as the cops pulled into what was left of the driveway. And in a flash of yellow light that lit-up the, now dark, sky, the two girls vanished from the scene, leaving behind only a small, knife-like object.

--

Riley had teleported herself both herself and Amanda to Riley's own little hideaway; a stuffy, smoke-smelling, one bedroom shack, complete with a grime covered floor and broken-in windows that had been half-assedly covered with flimsy excuses for boards. The shack, of course, was abandoned, being located in the... lesser-visited downtown area; the area where money, murder and drugs ruled.

'Wonder what this suburban girl would think waking up under a blanket covered in spiders.' Riley thought, idly. She loomed over Amanda, speculating, as the girl tossed in her sleep. 'Wonder what she's thinkin'...' Riley mused as Amanda muttered her friends' names in the wake of her unconsciousness.

Scrunching up her face, Riley looked over her shoulder at the small fire she'd made in the corner; the only source of heat in this damn room.

Riley put her hands on her hips. "Is it really possible that you're asleep?!" she mumbled to the sleeping girl. "When your friends could be dead?" She was, suddenly, tempted to kick her awake. "I'd leave you here, if I wasn't afraid they'd get you too..." she backed away from Amanda. "Okay, Relax, Riles. Your talking to yourself again... i'm going to shut-up now..."

Thanks Keira, anti.reality, for helping! R&R