Previously on Burning Black:

When we last left the gang, the boys on Timantha's rescue team were sent away from the manor as part of a deal with Juandissimo to find the location of Tootie and Romi. What they discovered was the contract between Remy and The Pixies that provides the motive for Timmy's murder 4 years earlier. But before Juandissimo could reveal the hostages' location, Remy showed up and attacked! Where could Tootie and Romi be and can they be rescued Halloween night?

19

~Buxaplenty Manor

Timantha managed to get back to her feet, bracing one hand against the bookshelf and clutching at her head with the other. The air smelled heavily of mana, fading quickly as it dispersed into the flow surrounding the world. Her mind spun and she felt a bit dizzy, uncertain as to what exactly had happened. Was freeing her mana supposed to cause an explosion?

She could hear, faintly, screams of panic from outside the study. The party-goers were probably panicking from the blast, scattering everywhere in their usual chaotic mobs. Well, at least that might change people's minds about Remy being the new Heart of Dimmsdale.

Ah, yes, Remy. What happened to him? Timantha shook her head to clear the haze a bit more and looked around herself. Her dress was torn and burnt, wrecked beyond any hope of repair. She winced, thinking of the amount of money Caleb had spent on it, then breathed a sigh of relief that he didn't really care about losses like that. The study was ruined, furniture blasted apart, books fallen from the shelves and burning or smoldering, and the accursed contract still floating in place, perfectly intact. The books burying Juandissimo had been blown clear, revealing the Latino fairy lying on the floor, unconscious.

"Anti-Cosmo? Anti-Wanda? Are you guys okay?" Timantha called out softly, scanning the room as she stepped towards the contract. She should take it with her; it was evidence, decisive proof that Remy had gone into an agreement to have her murdered. Much as it made her sick to think of the writing on the paper, the brunette needed to get it as part of the collection. She'd take it and her anti-fairies and get the hell out of here. She reached out to grab the paper...

And froze when she realized she still didn't know where Tootie and Romi were being held.

"Damn it all!" Timantha yelled, clutching at her head and sorely tempted to yank her own hair out from stress, "Can this night get any more frustrating?"

"Why, yes. It can." Remy purred from behind her back. The brunette managed a sharp inhalation before a second explosion, this one of pure pain, bloomed in her mind. She spun and fell backwards onto the floor, hands rising instinctively to cradle her injured head. Through the haze of agony and spinning double vision, Timantha could make out the figure of the boy billionaire standing over her with a fireplace poker in his grip, white tuxedo just as badly shredded as her dress. The insignia of the Aces High armor peeked through the tattered clothes.

"My shield activated when you set off that explosion. How lucky for me." Remy managed to growl between exhausted little pants for air, "I took the liberty of throwing those miserable anti-fairies out the window." He gripped the poker in both hands, pointing it in her direction. "Now, you're going to be a good little princess, and do exactly what I say. Remember, I still have the Goth girl and her fairy in my custody." he threatened harshly, "You're going to tell me everything about your mongrel brother and his connections, or they will never see daylight again."

Timantha murmured a healing spell under her breath, grimacing as the pain finally ebbed away. She pulled her hands away, pushing herself up and glancing towards the window, the glass blown away and the curtains torn to pieces. Not good. The antis were gone, Juandissimo was out cold without having given her any information, the pixies were on their way to grab Michael, and Remy was now holding her hostage in some lame attempt to make her his future queen.

Ew. So very gross.

"Start talking!" Remy barked at her and the brunette turned her glare on him. Fairies recovered fairly quickly, Timantha knew that much; she just needed to buy time for Juandissimo to wake up and give her Tootie's location. She smirked grimly. Well, then. Time to go shopping.

"Ofer Hoetu." she commanded, focusing on the poker in Remy's hands. The metal turned red-hot, forcing the boy to drop it with a cry of pain and alarm. Timantha flipped up from the floor and onto her feet, staggering a little at the sudden lightness of her own body. 'Wh-what's this? I feel... weird...' she thought to herself in concern, lifting a hand to stare at it. Everything tingled, like her whole body was waking up from being numbed. Had that explosion given her back the stolen mana after all?

Remy yelled angrily, pulling flash bombs from his belt and hurling them down, eyes squeezing shut. Timantha hurriedly swept a hand over her own face, conjuring a pair of sunglasses to block the light as she darted aside to scoop up the unconscious fairy. Even with his eyes shut, the boy billionaire kept throwing things around the room in a frenzy of rage, yelling intelligibly at the top of his lungs.

Grenades, flash bombs, spiked spheres, gas pellets, everything small and in his reach was flung all over the place in a frantic effort to hit the brunette. Timantha leaped and hopped to dodge the chaotic attacks, throwing up shields to push away most of the projectiles and contain the explosions. She couldn't just shove them out the window; what if they fell on an escaping party-goer? And just standing still behind Boltzman's Shield might mean one of those projectiles would bounce back at Remy and cause something she'd regret later.

As furious and wounded as she was to know that Remy had willingly helped in her murder, she was still a Hero first and Heroes didn't take revenge like that... no matter how tempting it was.

Juandissimo eventually stirred from his place in the crook of her arm, blinking blearily up at her in confusion. "Wanda?" he questioned in a slurred voice, trying and failing to focus his wandering eyes on her face.

"I'm Timantha, Juandissimo; how can you mistake me for her?" the brunette shot back irritably, sweeping her free hand back and forth rapidly, desperate to keep pace with the rapid throwing of things by the infuriated blonde while moving. The fairy groaned, rubbing at his head. "Remy smacked you into the bookshelf." Timantha told him before he could ask any questions, "The books fell on you but they protected you from the explosion that messed up this room. Where are Tootie and Romi?"

"I didn't tell you already?" Juandissimo returned woozily, eyes spinning in his head comically.

"No, you didn't! Now hurry up and tell me!" Timantha snapped, "This whole night's going to pieces and I need to get out of here and rescue them!" She jumped away from Remy's current targeting zone and pressed her back against the wall, breathing heavily. That numb feeling was fading, but she didn't trust herself to last much longer in a fight within a cramped space, especially with innocent people outside.

"They..." Juandissimo began uncertainly, then shook his head fiercely before holding it in both hands, his eyes finally regaining focus as he blinked at the sight of Remy raging in the ruined study. "Remy? Amigo? He was the one who attacked me?" he asked in shock. Timantha tossed him into the air, letting the fairy catch himself in mid-air, wings beating rapidly.

"Juandissimo! Tell me now!" she yelled at him in a mix of desperation and fury. He spun in place to stare at her just as Remy did the same, no longer blinded by the flashes of light.

"You are my fairy and I wish...!" the blonde began to shriek out.

"Spire Two! They're being held at the top of Dark Spire Two!" Juandissimo blurted out hurriedly, eyes darting back at his godchild in alarm.

"...you wouldn't say... argh!"

Timantha's blood ran cold at hearing those words. Spire Two? Tootie and Romi were being held captive in a Dark Spire? A magic-user and a fairy trapped in one of the nullifier sources, one of the most powerful ones in the city.

They could already be dead.

"No." she whispered in horror, one hand rising to her mouth. That can't be how this ends tonight! She would have to rescue them immediately. Desperate to do just that, Timantha bolted for the open window. Remy dove for her, snarling in anger.

"You're not going anywhere!" he yelled, and slammed face-first into a hastily summoned shield. Timantha paused at the window to shoot him a furious glare.

"I'm never going to forgive you for what you did to Timmy Turner!" she declared, "But I'm not going to get revenge for his death. No, you'll get what you deserve one day, but right now I have to rescue Tootie and her fairy. There's no way I'm letting them die because of you, too!" With that, she leaped out the window, ribbons of green whirling around her and carrying her on the wind as if she were as light as a feather.

Remy turned on Juandissimo in her place, teeth grinding together furiously. "What were you thinking?" he hissed, "You are my fairy; how dare you betray me like this?" Juandissimo sighed, shaking his head sadly.

"Aah, lo siento, my poor little godchild." the Latino fairy returned, "But it is you who had betrayed me first. I am trying to do what is best for my godchild so that he can be happy again." He looked determined and unrepentant for his actions, "If it means working against you somehow, then so be it. I will save you from yourself!"

Remy just gave a high-pitched, wordless scream of frustration before turning to glare out the broken window at Dimmsdale's skyline. "So, the battle of Spire Two is tonight, huh?" he growled, "Fine by me. Without that mongrel leading the team, you're going to fail anyway!"

Archives of the Twin Blades~

Caleb sighed in faint exasperation, fingertips pressing lightly against his forehead as Yuan reported on the data extracted from the downed Michael copy still resting on the examination table nearby.

"...and that seems to be the end of it." the blue-haired half-elf finished, tossing the clipboard aside and giving Caleb a lofty look, "Whether you like it or not, his cover was blown because of the anti-theft system you had integrated into us all. What are you to do about it?"

"It's probably a good thing I can't consume anything, otherwise I would have been a raging drunk looong ago." the redhead replied with a soft groan, "I thought this would be Timmy's problem, not mine!" Yuan simply lifted an eyebrow at him and Caleb waved him off. "Fine, I'll think of something for him later..."

The sound of a phone going off interrupted him and Caleb blinked as he looked towards the source of the sound. "What in Martel's name is that?" he questioned aloud. Yuan tilted his head, listening to the repeating melody.

"My Shiny Teeth and Me, sung by Chip Skylark III. I believe this is a cover version done by Adam Lambert?" the half-elf duplicate replied thoughtfully.

"That was rhetorical... never mind." Caleb muttered, going over to the offline android on the table and pulling out the cell phone from his pocket, "This is the phone registered to Timothy Neogene." Checking the caller ID only showed him an unlisted number; he winced and sighed again. "And already there's a phone call from someone at the party who's not using the cell phones I paid for. Don't I even get enough time to come up with cover stories for people anymore?"

"No, sir." Yuan remarked, hastily closing his mouth at the glare the redhead gave him.

"Ugh, the things I do to help my..." Caleb muttered and flinched, "little Heroes..." He shook his head, then flipped open the phone and brought it to his ear.

Dimmsdale Park~

Chester breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the call connect. He, Mark and A.J. all stood backstage, clustered around a payphone, while the rest of the party team went out to carry on as if the attack had all been part of the show, with Chip doing an encore of his songs for an impromptu costume dance contest. There was a lot of confusion floating around after the disappearance of the fairies, the pixies, and the now-obviously fake Timmy.

"Timmy! Where the heck are you?! There was some robot copy of you or whatever that was taking your place here at the park!" Chester barked out as soon as the phone picked up, "Timantha's in trouble and the rest of us was gonna ask you to think up a plan to help her and you're not even really at the park!"

"Sorry! But on a night like this, when I knew you guys would be going after Remy, I just couldn't sleep right!" Timmy's voice exclaimed, "I mean, yeah, Timantha's got some decent power to her, but she doesn't have the experience to fight against that jerk. So I asked Caleb to send over a copy of me real quick and decided to bail to help her out. Why aren't you guys using your phones? I almost ignored you calling!"

"You could have said something sooner." A.J. grumbled under his breath, arms folded over his chest as he sulked.

"Mark busted all our phones, ramming us into that nullifier room like some freaky-talking bulldozer! Now hurry up and get there faster!" Chester told the brunet fiercely, "She's all alone with Remy's weird-talking fairy and for all we know it's some kinda trap!"

"Yeah, okay, I'm on it! Sheesh!" Timmy griped, "I gotta go, something's come up." And the phone clicked off at that point, leaving the other boys just staring at the one in Chester's hand.

"Righ-TEOUS!" Mark suddenly blurted out with a huge smile, pumping both fists into the air, "Earth's Greatest Warrior will deal with this! Now bring on the sacks of brussel sprouts!"

"Are all kids from Europe this weird?" Chester asked A.J. in sotto. The other boy merely shrugged, completely confused.

Archives of the Twin Blades~

"Please tell me I don't have to impersonate a woman next." Caleb grumbled as he hung up Timmy's phone and pulled out his own, which had begun ringing softly partway through his conversation with the brunet's friends. Sliding the touchpad to pick up the call, he answered with his usual falsely cheerful tone, "Archives of the Twin Blades, New York City Branch. This is Caleb Altessa speaking; how may I help you?"

"Caleb! It's Timantha! I learned where Tootie and Romi are!" a girl's voice exclaimed breathlessly, the sounds of steps running over pavement bleeding through the speaker as well.

"I thought you said she was in Buxaplenty Manor." the android remarked suspiciously, "If the situation's changed, you should have called me first!"

"I'm calling you now, aren't I? They're in Spire Two! I'm already heading there with Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda!" Timantha shot back, "I need you to call Michael and tell him to wish Cosmo and Wanda back to me!"

"That's going to be difficult to do. The pixies tried to abduct Michael and it set off his anti-theft system. He's currently here in New York, offline." Caleb sighed, rubbing his forehead, "And your fairies just vanished during the commotion... wait. Did you say they're in a Dark Spire?"

"Yeah! That's why I'm running over there as fast as I... Michael's down? But he's got my phone!"

"I know; you got called on it from Chester so I had to answer in your voice. They think Timmy Turner is running towards Buxaplenty Manor."

"Gah! How is this night falling apart this fast?!"

"Your guess is as good as mine." Caleb replied with a roll of his eyes, reaching out to grab the Wonder Fork from where it rested against the wall of the repair bay, "Where is Spire Two located anyway?"

"This one is in the High-Commercial District, the central hub for Dimmsdale's top-class shops and restaurants for the wealthy..."

"Thanks. Meet you there. You'll need someone with resurrections spells, just in case." the android returned and hung up before any response could be made. Yuan stared at him in surprise.

"I thought you wouldn't be returning to Dimmsdale until Danny Phantom awoke from his coma!" he remarked, astonished by the change in plans.

"Danny's safe here, but where Timothy is going is very dangerous and he could use the backup." Caleb returned, turning the fork over in his hands, "You know how I operate, Yuan. Pieces are being moved on the board, the game is changing, and I'm not always in control. There's a greater prize at stake, and the true chessmaster wants all contingencies in place before making the next move." The blue-haired half-elf lifted his hand to his mouth thoughtfully, considering the words.

"I see. This is to protect the investment made into one of those contingencies, isn't it?" Yuan mused aloud, "Codename: Sparrow, I believe...?" Caleb only turned and lifted a finger to his mouth, worried expression on his face. "Sorry. Just be careful out there, all right?" the half-elf sighed just as the redhead vanished in a burst of smoke, "He just doesn't listen. Souls complicate things."

En route to Spire Two~

"Argh! He hung up on me!" Timantha growled, glaring at her phone as she ran, "Again! That's the third time he's cut me off; whatever happened to that teacher-student thing where he practically hovered over me twenty-four/seven?" She tripped, a heel breaking off of one of her shoes, and would have landed on her face if not for Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda flicking their wands to catch her with their magic, setting her back on her feet. "Did I step on a crack or something?!" she yelled, throwing up her hands, "Everything's out to get me tonight!"

"No, dear; if you'd done that, I would have flittered off to make your mother's back a nightmare of chiropractic therapy." Anti-Cosmo returned flatly before pointing at her shoes, "It's the fact that you're running around in high heels that have no business being treated like track-and-field wear."

"Tha's why I run on mah hands!" Anti-Wanda agreed with a smile, showing off her palms covered in overgrown blisters that apparently didn't bother her one bit. Timantha gagged at the sight before sighing in exasperation.

"Look, guys. I'm glad you two were all right after being tossed out by Remy..." she began.

"All that lovely panic and chaos fixed us up in a jiffy, yes." Anti-Cosmo tittered cheerfully, sharp grin growing broad as he recalled the amount of negative energy that seemed to have just rolled off the party-goers and rejuvenated the anti-fairies while they sat dizzily on the garden hedges.

"...but can't you make a tiny exception for me and just poof me to the Dark Spire?!" Timantha finished, yelling her words at the top of her lungs. The anti-fairy opened his mouth to answer, just as another voice cut in.

"Anti-fairies don't grant wishes. Fairy godparents do." Wanda remarked sternly. Timantha lit up, spinning around and gazing up at the pink-haired fairy hovering there with her wand in hand. A green puff of smoke cleared to reveal Cosmo floating by his anti-self, staring blankly at the brunette. He blinked once, then turned to give him a flat, faintly hostile glare.

"You were supposed to be protecting her." he growled softly.

"I got brains. You got power." Anti-Cosmo growled back, "Or at least that's the way it's supposed to go."

Oblivious to the duel of glares behind her, Timantha happily reached out to grasp Wanda's hands with her fingertips. "Wanda, Cosmo! I'm so glad you're here!" she exclaimed, "What happened at the party in the park? I called Caleb and he said Michael went down and-!"

"Well, he wrecked your cover pretty badly, Sport." Wanda returned with a nervous chuckle before giving her a concerned once-over with her eyes, "Our Timmy Sense went off just as he destroyed that capture machine thing, so we tried to get to you to make sure you were safe." One tiny hand reached out to curve against the brunette's cheek. "But we couldn't get through the barrier around the room you were in. The place looked demolished! What happened in there?!"

Timantha blinked, puzzled before her eyes widened in realization. "Oh! There was a nullifier in that room! That's what kept you out!" she answered brightly, "It was built into a really big wooden desk...!"

"I saw a desk like that. It was hanging off a tree in the lawn." Wanda muttered, "No, the barrier wasn't a nullifier; I'd have known if it was. It was something else; very strong and very dark." She glanced aside at the anti-fairies almost distrustfully. "And it stayed around you for the past ten blocks. Cosmo and I couldn't get near you until just a few minutes ago when it finally dropped away."

Timantha frowned at the insinuation, stepping back from her fairy godmother. "That's not the anti-fairies' fault. It must have been something else, like a side effect of my stolen mana exploding all at once in Remy's study." she shot back and waved her hand dismissively, "Anyway, you said it's gone now, and the antis are still here, so obviously they're not connected." She let her expression soften once she saw Wanda look a bit stung. "Look, I know you were worried about me, and I'm sorry for worrying you, but we can't be fighting each other when we're all agreed that we should fight together against the Dark Spires." the brunette explained quickly, "And we need to hurry to Spire Two! Tootie and Romi are being held there!" The fairies gasped in unison, horrified by the very thought. "Yes! So can we please get there sometime before the world ends?!" Timantha declared, throwing up her arms again in exasperation.

"Funny, I was about to ask the same thing." Caleb remarked as he touched down nearby, red wings shutting off and folding away, "I teleported to the Ivory Tower and flew towards this district, then let my mana sensors direct me straight to you." He blinked a few times, looking puzzled. "Why is your head covered in dried blood?" the android asked tactlessly.

"Eh?" Timantha blinked back dumbly before touching a hand to her cheek, the same one Wanda had held out of concern just moments ago, "Was I running around all this time with blood on my face?" She shot a glare at Anti-Cosmo, who whistled a jaunty tune shamelessly. "Why didn't you tell me I was covered in my own blood?!" she snapped, flushing furiously with embarrassment.

"It's Halloween, dear Timantha, and you blew a corner of Buxaplenty Manor all over his garden party." the anti-fairy returned brightly, "I don't think anyone was in a position to care what was on your face, and with the number of costumed children running amok with fake blood oozing out of every place they can think of, real blood seemed avant-garde enough to work."

Timantha turned redder, teeth clenching together as she rallied herself for the mother of all tantrums when Caleb's voice made her take abrupt pause. "Is that the dress I bought you?" he asked in that flat, 'I'm-going-to-make-you-regret-knowing-my-name' tone that made every Hero who heard it drop what they were doing and run. She winced, shoulders hunching up defensively as she turned to look back at him with a pained smile on her bloodied face.

"Eh heheheheh..." she chuckled nervously, "Um... well..."

"The dress I had Gucci custom-make specifically for your battle needs?"

"Ah, I..."

"The dress I agreed to import the finest Indian silver-threaded silk for on short notice so that it would be ready under those requirements for this very night?"

"...oh, so that's why it does that shimmer thing..."

"The dress that is now just a very pretty set of stitched together rags?"

"Hm."

There was silence as the fairies and anti-fairies glanced at one another nervously before looking back at the two facing off. Timantha fiddled with one of the burnt holes in the fabric while Caleb just continued giving her that unchanged stern glare.

"That dress cost ten thousand dollars." he finally stated. Timantha winced.

"I know."

"Your dress cost ten thousand dollars." Caleb repeated a bit more firmly, glare sharpening.

"Yeah..."

"Ten. Thousand. Dollars."

Silence again. It was getting both tense and kind of awkward for the young immortal. She fiddled with one of the larger tears in the fabric before daring a look up at the android. "Sorry?" Timantha ventured meekly, flinching when Caleb's eyes narrowed at her, "It did really good though..."

Another minute of glaring and Caleb sighed, rubbing his head. "At least it did the job it was supposed to." he relented, "In the end, that's what matters most. Although, if I had known you were going to be beaten over the head, I probably would have invested in a mythril-lined hat or something." He shrugged, giving Timantha a small smile, "But then what do I know about fashion? I've been wearing the same outfit for the past few billion years; torn up Gucci dresses might be the next 'in' thing."

The brunette broke into laughter, relieved that he wasn't actually mad at her over the ruined dress. She'd been worried for a minute there, but of course he wouldn't be that upset about it; after all, when did Caleb ever care about how much he spent on anything?

"I'm just glad you're all right." the redhead told her, resting a hand on her head, "Bloody face and ruined clothes aside, of course. Did you get your stolen mana back?" Timantha sighed, looking to her hand as she opened and closed it experimentally.

"I don't think I did, but it definitely isn't in Remy's hands anymore." she returned, "It kind of exploded on us after I broke the glass ball holding it." She shook her head, "Look, I'll explain everything after we rescue Tootie and Romi! We have to get to Spire Two now!"

"Just us? We're not enough to take on a Dark Spire without any preparation!" Anti-Cosmo exclaimed in shock, "You've always attacked with a full team, all your friends and supporters!" Timantha turned a pleading gaze on him, eyes wide and teary.

"It'll take too long and Remy already knows I'm going after them! If we back out to plan a new rescue, he'll have the time to move them and all of this will have been for nothing!" she cried, then yelped as Caleb patted her shoulder to regain her attention.

"Then we're just going to have to be enough for tonight." he agreed grimly, "Martel help us if we waste the time and efforts put into a Halloween rescue and we let the villain win on a technicality." Timantha nodded and turned to her fairies.

"Cosmo, Wanda! I wish I had the Blue Crystal Rod with me!" she declared, holding up her hands as the couple lifted their wands, stars shining bright. A pink poof of magic smoke cleared above her as the replicated staff appeared and dropped into her waiting hands. "All right! Now I wish we were all as close to Spire Two as possible without dropping into the nullifier field!" she finished. Another wave of the wands and the tiny rescue group poofed away in a blast of pink smoke.

Dark Spire Two, Interior~

"Strike with heaven's wrath! Thunder Arrow!" Tootie yelled and the spell blasted open the door to her cell. "Okay, I've had, like, a week to think this over and you know what?" the young Goth growled to herself as she raced out with her fairy clinging to her shoulders, tossing away the remains of her aluminum foil wand, "Screw Timmy Turner! I'll rescue my own self!"

"Eeeeks!" Romi cried, pigtails exploding into balls of frizz again, "Couldn't you have waited until morning?!"

Tootie dashed down the hall, ignoring the alarms going off around her and searching for some kind of fire escape or emergency elevator, something that she could use to get out of wherever the heck she was and out into some fresh air and freedom. Sitting around and waiting to be saved was getting to be boring and a pain in the neck to do. Nothing was happening except for the nullifier field getting stronger and that itching getting worse. It must be because she was wearing the same clothes all this time. Tootie wanted decent food, a long shower and some sleep in her own soft bed; this damsel in distress business was a load of bull!

Her timing must have been pretty good, too. As the raven-haired girl found a maintenance elevator to use, she also noted a distinct lack of any kind of fairy traps hunting her. No destroyers with their guts full of knock out gas, no capture units to hook their nets over her head, no nullifiers or controllers of any kind. What was going on?

"Could it be...?" Tootie mumbled to herself, pushing her glasses higher up her nose in consideration, "Could it be that Timmy found me after all, and those things were called away to try and keep him away? Where the heck am I?!" She focused her attention on the call buttons in the elevator once she was inside, her eyes wide at the numerous circles in the menu. So many floors! Was she trapped inside a tower like some storybook princess? What kind of messed-up plan was this by Remy...?

"Oh, no way!" she breathed in realization, "Don't tell me... Remy locked us up inside a Dark Spire?!" Romi squealed again, her frizzy pigtails exploding into a cloud of black and silver hair to leave her with just a messy bob cut. Tootie pressed the button for the ground floor and pressed her back against the far wall of the elevator as it began descending, hugging herself tightly as she looked around in renewed fear.

She was inside an active Spire. If all the anti-magic units were gone, it's a good bet that it meant this place was under attack. Her friends would be outside, and they might not even know she was in here. What if they blew up the Dark Spire while she was still in it?!

"Wait for me to come out! Oh, please, please wait for me to get out of here!" Tootie cried softly, shifting back and forth on her feet nervously, "I don't want to be a pile of rubble on the six o'clock news!"