Laaaast part, which means it's your last chance to leave a review. Tell me how you liked the story.
The sacred stones flickered. The portal under the light began to close and the light began to condense. The Headwitch watched the event in surprise. Strange, she thought. The resurrection seemed to be working. She turned back to the spellbook. Why couldn't she read it yet? Of course, she thought as she looked at Nico, the girl must not be dead yet. She must have protected herself somehow.
No matter; she just had to destroy the body. The Headwitch muttered, "Incinerate," and her hand lit up with a red flame. She walked closer to Nico. She aimed.
Nico opened her eyes and said, "Up."
A rush of wind captured both of them. The roof shrunk below them as they climbed higher and higher. The Headwitch held tightly onto her staff, her old and frail body not fit for this kind of physical force. "Where are you taking us?" she yelled.
"Just a couple miles into the lower stratosphere," yelled back Nico. "What's the matter? Can't levitate?"
"Insolent child. I'll show you why I don't need to levitate." Nico noticed blue energy swirling around the Headwitch. Her sky blue eyes were glowing and her staff was surging with energy again. "From the depths of the ethereal planes, come forth Yggdrasil."
There was a short burst of magical light before a creature flew out from the clouds. It was sky blue like the Headwitch's eyes, almost camouflaged in the air. Six wings beat from the back of its snake-like body, which was covered in more feathers than scales. At its tail end was a whip which would snap as the creature turned and at its front were two pinhole eyes and sharp, double-rowed teeth. It circled Nico and the Headwitch in the air, crying a strangely high pitched roar.
"My stead," says the Headwitch. "He gets very hungry. It has been a long time before he has tasted human flesh."
"Unlucky for you," said Nico. She raised the Staff of One. She could only cast this spell once, but once would be all she ever needed. "I'm sorry." She looked straight into the creature's eye and said, "I am your master now."
The Headwitch shuddered. "No. No, you can't. That's just not fair."
The creature again roared. The wind got more vicious as it rolled towards the old woman. "Stop. You obey me, understand? You obey me."
"Don't kill her!" cried Nico. "Don't…" It opened its mouth and a vortex pulled the Headwitch in.
"You little shit," she kept crying. "I was the last Minoru. Me. Me!"
"Don't… don't kill…" The creature had swallowed the Headwitch whole, and was already riding back into the clouds. Nico realized that she was slowly descending, the roof reappearing below her, where Kenyon's field of protection had expired. Slowly she took notice that the stones were no longer glowing, and that the white light was gone. In its place was a naked African-American teen with a compact afro, lying on the rooftop. Slowly Nico touched the surface and walked towards him.
He was sleeping. Considering herself somewhat of a gentlewoman, she tore off the lower part of her dress and covered his, uh, man-bits. Now her legs felt a little cold but she could just stitch up a new dress anyway. She took a good, long look. It was Alex all right. Man.
Chase was going to kill her.
Dear Diary,
Turns out Nico's spell didn't bring back Gert. It brought back Alex instead. Everyone's a little disappointed, especially Chase. He had a big argument with Nico, but I think he believes her when she says it wasn't her fault. She also says that she saw Gert but Chase just got more disappointed when he heard that Gert didn't leave a message for him. Anyway, Alex is still asleep and we haven't been able to wake him up yet.
A lot of other stuff happened. That group of wizards that attacked everybody is gone, "vanished" Karolina says. Turns out the police were attacking them and they got angry, and now everybody is angry at the police chief that captured us. Victor made us watch the news and a man said that the chief was going to be replaced, and that he might be in trouble along with a man named Michael Blaine for doing stuff without a warrant. I don't understand it all, but Nico says we won't be hunted anymore and that's great!
Since we helped save the city, we even got mentioned on TV. The mayor said we should be treated as heroes. Other people aren't so sure, but I say we've always been heroes. Victor says that now the mayor stands a chance at getting reelected; I didn't know he was running against anybody in the first place.
We still need a place to live. We could stay at Victor's as long as we want, but it's getting a little bit cramped. Old Lace needs room to exercise. She and Klara are playing while I'm writing this. Nico went ahead and threw away the spellbook; she says that she wants to forget her family history and that the book was nothing but trouble.
Anyway, I don't like Alex but I can't help but think that he's changed, that he's gotten better. I even swear I remember him talking to me once, after he died. I don't know, maybe it was just a dream.
-Molly
"Hey Mol, we're going out for pizza," called Chase.
"Hey, wait for me. I want to try pineapple and mushrooms like Karolina always gets."
Chase aimed the hose at the leapfrog. It was a while since it had been cleaned, and since the hunt for them had been dropped Chase figured it was safe to wash it in the open. Water splashed off its green hide. "Not feeling talkative today, frog?" he said. "Me neither."
"Actually, Mister Chase,"it said, "I have a transmission for you. I received it while on the rooftop when we extracted Master Alex's body."
"A transmission?" he asked. "From who?"
"Gertrude Yorkes."
Chase dropped the hose. He swallowed a lump in his throat and evenly said, "What did she have to say?"
"Transmission: I loved you Chase, don't ever doubt that, and I miss you. You must be disappointed that I didn't come back, but don't worry: I've moved on and so can you. Don't let anyone call you stupid or put you down. You've got a lot of potential and should be proud of it. Make sure Nico doesn't get too fresh with Alex; steal her away from him if you have to. That's an order, honey. Gert."
Chase felt tears well up in his eyes. He wiped them away and picked up the hose again. "It's a great day, frog," he said.
"Glad you think so," said Nico as she walked up to him. "What are you so teary-eyed about?"
"Oh, just thinking about Gert," He answered, "Something she once said."
"Uh-huh," said Nico. "It's too bad. Kenyon played us like fools."
"It wasn't your fault," said Chase as he continued watering down the frog. "It wasn't anyone's fault." They stood in silence as Chase moved the hose in a horizontal motion. He asked, "So when Alex wakes up, what are you going to do?"
"Like I said: slap him across the face."
"And then what?"
Nico shrugged. "I don't know. Initiation? We're stuck with each other after all." She stretched her arms and yawned. "We've always got problems, don't we?"
"But we'll get through them," Chase replied. "Just like always."
"Remember the first year we all got together, K? When we hid in Alex's basement and watched R-rated movies on cable and Gert told us what all the dirty jokes meant even though she was wrong half the time? Why can't it still be like that? How come we didn't get to have crazy-long childhoods like every other spoiled brat in the country?"
Karolina sat next to Chase and said, "Gert used to say that kids spend their whole lives wanting to be adults and adults spend their lives wanting to be kids."
"Hn. What do you think Gert wanted?"
"I don't know," answered Karolina as Chase stared further into the pitch-black sky, "she just spent her life living."
Acknowledgements
A big thanks to Stormgirl415 for all her reviews and support. Thanks also to halloweenbaby, Fire Tears X, and Blanks for leaving reviews, as well as all the readers who favorited me or put this story on their "story alerts" list. Uh, a big thanks to BKV for creating Runaways, an awesome comic.
And yeah, that should be it.
Right now I don't have another fic planned. I'm probably going to take a break from writing for a while. When I do come back, I may write a sequel to this fic, or something for another fandom. Until then, I hope you enjoyed the story. Free free to message me if you have any questions about it, or leave a review of course.