Author's Note: Chapter 6 is here! Just so everyone's warned, updates are going to be pretty slow on the grounds that I'm being attacked by vicious plot bunnies…*Sees pack of rabid plot bunnies approaching* Ack! Enjoy the chapter! *Runs away*

Shadows of Anarchy

Molly groaned as her awareness slowly came crawling back to her, and she almost wished that it didn't as it brought her attention to the myriad of aches and pains in her body. She blinked open her eyes, cringing as the sensitive orbs were assaulted by torchlight, and she exerted all her strength to turn her head away from the light.

A pounding headache beat a thundering rhythm behind her eyes, making her whimper and also causing her to become aware of how raw her throat was, and how dry and tight her skin felt.

It felt like there were dozens of tiny fires burning beneath the surface of her skin, and she cringed, whimpering again, only to start coughing and hacking afterwards. Pain shot through her throat at that action, and her lungs struggled to pull in enough air. She was hardly aware of her hands rising to clutch at her throat, her entire focus on getting herself to stop coughing and thus alleviate the pain that she was in, the pain that was brought about by extreme thirst.

Just when it felt like she was about to black out, a hand slid beneath her head and raised it up enough for her to feel the edge of a cool glass that someone was holding up to her lips. The glass tilted and blessedly cool water touched her mouth which automatically opened and empty night did that liquid feel fantastic sliding down her parched throat!

The blonde woman continued drinking until the glass was completely drained, more than a few drops spilling out to run down her chin and neck which felt amazing, and the few times she attempted to chug the water thwarted by whoever was holding the glass pulling it away whenever she tried.

She gasped for breath, still thirsty, but at least the pain was somewhat bearable and she was able to try and think clearly. She was just beginning to remember some of the events that might have led up to her current condition when the rim of another glass of water (maybe the same one?) touched her lips and she was distracted by drinking as much of the cool liquid as she possibly could.

Molly blinked, not sure when she had closed her eyes, and blobs of color swam before her eyes before resolving into the shape of Bakura, the other woman wearing an expression of concern as she leaned over her, holding the water glass in one hand and apparently supporting the apprentice's head with the other.

The wizard-in-training finished off her second glass of water and managed to croak out, "What happened?" as she opened and closed her brown eyes* to try and banish the faint spots that had yet to leave her field of vision. On the up side, it seemed like her hearing had more-or-less returned to normal, with the exception of a faint ringing that she was able to ignore with a strong effort.

Bakura coughed lightly, and the apprentice to wonder if the other woman was also suffering the effects of the intense heat of the explosion from her blasting rod, and then began to speak, "First I have to say that I have some idea of how we went from nearly getting barbequed on a city street to – well, here actually," she paused to take a drink of the glass of water in her pale hand.

The blonde glanced over and saw that there were three other glasses of water on the floor next to where Bakura was kneeling (so it hadn't been the same glass after all), and she realized that she was laying on one of the low couches in the lounge where she and the other woman had spent what had remained of the previous day.

After finishing her drink, Bakura continued speaking, "And second, that wand that you were pointing at Diabound exploded and…I don't really know how to tell you this, but you might want to take a look at yourself and then go take an ice bath…"

Ryou watched as Molly blinked and then looked at her exposed arms, already knowing what the blonde woman would see and knowing that her reaction wasn't going to be pretty. All of the wizard-in-training's exposed skin, and probably the skin beneath her clothes as well, was literally as red as a lobster. He himself had been surprised at the sudden change in her skin color; if only because it was nowhere near as bad as he'd thought it would be given how close she had been to the explosion (he still didn't know how or why that had happened).

Thankfully, the large blisters on the hand that had been holding the wand had burst while she'd been unconscious, thereby sparing her some of the pain that her full-body injury would undoubtedly cause her while it healed. The thought of the amount of peeling that would surely happen made him wince in sympathy, since the few times that he'd been sunburned had given him a healthy appreciation for the amount of discomfort they could cause, and Molly's would probably be ten to twenty times more painful.

He sat back on his heels as he watched Molly slowly turned her hands over, examining them from every angle, wincing at the sight of the popped blisters on the palm of the one hand, and he quietly took another drink of water to soothe his parched throat while he waited for the blonde woman to finish her self-examination.

After the inexplicable explosion, the former holder of the Millennium Ring had carried the unconscious blonde back to the lounge, as that was the first cool room that came to mind. Once he'd set Molly down on the couch that she'd slept on the previous day, he had run back to the bathroom and searched for around ten minutes before he had found six water glasses stashed in one of the cupboards (he honestly had no clue why they were there, but he was thankful that they were). He had then filled all of them up with water and carried them two at a time back to the lounge, because if there was one thing that he had learned after having had a few sunburns in his life, it was that staying hydrated was important.

Ten minutes after he had sat down on another couch to wait for the wizard-in-training to wake up, his skin had begun to feel tight and itchy, and his throat had started burning as though it had suddenly dried out. So he'd picked up one of the full glasses and sipped at the cool water until the glass was empty, but on the up side, his throat had moistened for the time being and his skin hadn't felt quite so tight…

Ryou thought rather ruefully that he should probably take his own advice and stay hydrated…and maybe take a cool bath or shower, just to be on the safe side.

The whitette was pulled out of his thoughts by a strangled sound from the direction of Molly's couch, and when he looked over to see what was wrong, he was treated to the amusing sight of the apprentice turning a curious shade of purple as she stared in horror at her lobster-red arms.

If the situation weren't so serious he would have laughed, the look on the blonde's face was just that funny. Instead, he mentally filed the memory away in his 'Do Not Forget Under Any Circumstances' file in the back of his mind as he asked her, helpfully holding out one of the remaining glasses of water as he did so, "More water?"

By all rights, the look that Molly shot him right then should have struck him dead and set him on fire, it was so venomous.

Molly looked apprehensively at the large, sunken bathtub (seriously, she was pretty sure that she could go snorkeling in it and still have room to spare!) filled to the brim with cold water and the floating ice cubes in it. She honestly had no idea where Bakura had found the ice, but she decided to hold off questioning the other woman until she got into the tub and started the process of easing the furious burning under her skin. And she froze as, in the middle of stripping off the remains of her shirt, she remembered that Bakura had called the creature she had seen by name.

Diabound, the whitette had called it. The very thought of the creature made her skin crawl, which combined with the burning of her sunburn served to make her wince and bite back a whimper. But that raised the question of how in the world Bakura had known that in the first place, and she wasn't about to just let that mystery slide by!

Names had power, especially over wizards and magical creatures like faeries and demons, especially True Names. Every serious practitioner knew that, or at least they knew the general idea of it, and so they were very careful about whom they told their names to. If another magic-user got hold of someone's full name, they could use it to take control of that person and make them do whatever they wanted – and other wizards were especially vulnerable to that sort of magic. And the more powerful the practitioner was, the more dangerous their true names were to them. And for magical creatures, their Names could be used to enslave them and so they guarded that information fiercely. For someone to find out the Name of a monster as powerful as this 'Diabound' obviously was…it was a huge deal, and it sent shivers jolting up and down Molly's spine.

The point was, the apprentice told herself as she finished pulling off the remains of her shirt, that names had power, and for someone like Bakura to have found out one of them…well, getting it definitely couldn't have been easy. There was also no putting off on asking her questions, because if the whitette was messing around with magic that she didn't understand, in the words of Harry Dresden 'all hell's going to break loose, padawan'.

Molly sighed in relief as she sank down into the chilled water, gooseflesh rising all over her body as the cold connected sharply with her full-body sunburn, and she groaned as the burning sensation under her skin suddenly lessened, leaving a sharp feeling in its' wake.

She heard the door open and opened her eyes, not knowing when she had closed them, in time to see the other girl set a small bucket full of ice down next to the tub. The blonde smiled, barely able to bite back the urge to immediately start questioning the whitette, and instead she decided to go the sneaky route and ask when the other girl couldn't easily get away. Noting that Bakura was keeping her eyes well aware from her and thinking that the white-haired girl was just shy, Molly cheerfully offered, "Come on in, the water's fine!" And, not seeing the red color that immediately rose to Bakura's cheeks due to the curtain of white hair she continued, "You weren't as close to the explosion as me, but I'm sure that an ice bath will help you feel better faster."

Bakura hesitated, which further reinforced Molly's guess that the other girl was really shy, but then reached up to unzip her coat hesitantly, head turned just enough to give the wizard-to-be a glimpse of the bright red color covering the whitette's cheeks.

Definitely shy, Molly thought as Bakura shrugged out of her jacket, and the blonde idly noted that Bakura's chest was rather flat for a….woman…

"You're a guy?!"

* - I don't think the books ever told us what color Molly's eyes were, so I went with brown.

Author's Note: Yes, Molly is finally getting a clue. I could only keep the gender confusion going for so long, after all! ^.^ Again, I'm sorry for the really long wait, but the plot bunnies are still attacking me, and they have somehow gained access to catapults. I have no idea how. In semi-related news, I'm stuck on how to write a plot bunny, and I've rediscovered the wonders of the G-Gundam anime and the Stargate: SG-1 TV series. ;-)

Quick Poll: Would you like an interlude to see what's happening with Harry, or should I stick with Ryou and Molly?