Disclaimer: I do not own Human Target. At All. I do, however, own any new characters that pop up in this story. I own any mentioned unknown establishments and anything in them. Therefore, please ASK ME before trying to use. It's the respectful and honest thing to do. Thankies!

Authoress Note: So someone here (twiddles my thumbs) has been reading to many fantasy and sci-fi books along with reading to many awesome fics of the like here on FF and I figured I'd kick my brain into gear and try to write something with the ideas that started swimming in my lil brain heehee.

Extra Note: I totally blame music for this as well. I've been on a weird kick with music lately and it got this outta me lol. So if you wanna get a feel for what spurred this, try listening to "Magic" by The Cars, "Weird Science" by Oingo Boingo, "A Kind of Magic" by Queen, and "The Scientist" by Coldplay to name a few heehee.

Of Magic & Formulas III

"You know I'm impressed," Clover commented nonchalantly as she tilted Starchaser up, dodging being seen by a helicopter and taking to flying above the clouds, "you're handling all this quit well for a muddling." Clover felt his larger arms tighten around her waist as she lazily did a twist, sending them upside down briefly, before he loosened up.

Christopher Chance was an odd one. Clover looked back and saw a weak, and somewhat charming, grin on his face. "I've had experience with witches before," he explained as Clover looked down, spotting a few familiar landscapes. Good. They were getting close. Meaning then sooner they got there the sooner she could get back to her sister.

In San Francisco the men had decided that they needed more info on the Hunters and how to handle them. They were non-magical and guns could only do so much for them. Fiona – her and her big mouth – had suggested they get more information from The Keeper. "Who's The Keeper?" Winston had asked, all turning on Clover for information.

She sighed and put down the coffee machine – such an odd contraption – before answering boredly. "He's The Keeper of knowledge. They say he knows everything about anything and anyone. Your future, your past, an objects origins, anything he can tell. He's also said to be an interesting drunk," she'd added for fun. Fiona looked hopeful. "Then he could be the one to tell us what we need to know about the Hunters and why they're hunting us, couldn't he?"

Clover had shrugged and mumbled that it was a possibility before Christopher Chance had suggested they give The Keeper a visit. Clover refused at first. She would not leave her sister. Not with mortals she did not know. But the one called Christopher Chance was a persuave muddling and with Fiona backing him up, Clover caved in.

"Oh really?" Clover finally replied as Starchaser hummed against her fingers, notifying her of their close arrival to The Keep of The Keeper; a large tower that was once said to be the home of the real Rapunzel and the Witch that had trapped her away. "How fascinating. Most non magical humans loose their memory of their encounters. I'm impressed… Anyone I know?" she asked, looking back at him.

He shrugged as best he could, looking boyish. "Dunno. Familiar with a Julia Hastings or the Halliwell Sisters?" he asked, and Clover, in a daze, nearly dropped them from the sky! Catching herself, and getting an irritated purr from Starchaser, Clover steadied them and pried the man's arms from her waist. He had a very painful grip! "Let's not do that again," he said, trying to sound calm, but looking a little shaken up.

"I am familiar with Julia, yes… I did not know she resided in San Francisco… But what baffles me is that you have had dealings with the Sisters three! You seem to attract the troublesome ones, don't you?" Clover mumbled in disbelief, ignoring his fear from the drop. Four witches and not one had erased his memory? Perhaps this Christopher Chance was more than the eye could tell.

-0-

Fiona smiled as Carmine nudged the slober coated ball in her hand once again. She had been playing catch with him since Clover and Mr. Chance had taken off. She wished she could go. She had always wanted to meet The Keeper. He was the man her parents had went to when it was discovered that she was showing no signs of magic. They had hoped that she was just a late bloomer. But The Keeper had confirmed that she had no magic and thus her outcast life had begun.

Fiona tossed the ball once more and smiled as the dog ran after it. "That's the most movement I've seen from that dumb animal in years," Winston muttered as Carmine bounded past him, trying to get his ball out from under a coffee table. He looked nervous. He was pacing slightly and his large hands would run down his bald head to his neck and he'd stare out the window Clover and Mr. Chance had left from.

"You need not worry, Mr. Winston," Fiona said with a smile as Carmine got his ball and again brought it to her. Fiona rolled it further this time, as Winston grumbled incoherently to himself. "Clover is brash and rough but she's a skilled flier and a full-fledged Avalon. We are hard to kill. And we protect what we swear to protect," she sighed, almost chanting her families code. Avalons did not give up, and Fiona knew that Clover would not give up until all was as it should be.

Fiona watched Winston grumbled and continue to look at the window before her eyes landed on the third member of the team. He was an interesting one. He'd hardly said much since they'd arrived. He'd been typing away and asking a few questions of them, but for the most part he kept to himself and the computer. Tossing the ball once more, Fiona rose from her seat and walked over to him.

She stood away from him on the other side of the table he sat at, watching him type. She did not hover because she had seen how Clover had really upset him by doing so. She kept a safe but friendly distance. "I hope you don't mind me saying, Mr. Guerrero, but you are handling this all rather… Indifferently," she said finally. He glanced up at her and Fiona felt as if his bright blue eyes could pierce right into her very soul. A shiver ran down her spine.

He raised a brow, his fingers grazing across the keyboard flawlessly. "Just another job, dude," he shrugged easily, "can't let any odd details get in the way of getting things done. Unprofessional," he continued, looking back at the keyboard. Fiona watched him, taking in the way his fingers moved and the way he was almost hunched over his keyboard like an animal guarding it's property; calm but still tense enough to strike. Hmm.

Fiona tapped her chin before shooing away her random thoughts. She turned to ask Winston to sit down – he was actually starting to creep her out with all the worried pacing he was doing – when out of the corner of her eye she noticed something. She looked back at Guerrero and tilted her head. She took one cautious step forward and squinted, watching the back of his head; his neck more precisely.

"That's a nasty looking mark," she commented softly, wincing and grabbing at her own neck. Under his hair she'd been able to catch a glimpse of a decent sized scar – possibly about the size of her palm – hidden under his long shaggy hair. It looked old… But painful. Fiona hated seeing scars on people, because she found herself imagining what could have happened to get such a scar.

Guerrero continued typing, but she noticed his fingers curl quickly into am fist before he quickly went back to typing, pretending to ignore her. Touchy subject, maybe? Fiona felt if she wanted to keep her life, she ought to not ask. "Mr. Winston, have you ever played Wizards Chess?" Fiona asked, walking back into the center of the living room to put distance between her and Mr. Guerrero.

Winston stopped his pacing and watched her lift an wooden oak box about the size of a simple jewelry box and sat it on the table. Winston slowly crossed the room and lowered himself. "I've played regular chess," he mumbled and Fiona smiled. "Good. Then that's all you need to know," she chuckled, opening the box and pulling out tiny chess pieces.

A game would be a good way to get their minds on something else…. Hopefully Clover and Mr. Chance would be back soon.

-0-

"Couldn't you have just flown us up?" Clover looked to the left and tossed her hair out of her face as best she could as the wind caught it, watching the large male dig his fingers into the hard surface of the tower they were both currently climbing up.

Upon arriving to the tower, Starchaser had begun to shrink to his compact size. They'd barely made it to the ground before Clover was left holding him in the palm of her hand, becoming a bracelet charm. She'd hooked him to her charm bracelet next to a potion bottle shaped charm before the bracelet melted into her skin so it wouldn't catch on the rocks she knew they'd have to climb.

"Haven't you ever heard the story of Rapunzel, Christopher Chance?" she panted, yanking herself up with another protruding brick from the old tower, her feet digging into the ivy vines webbing their way along the side up the tower. "Yeah," he answered, slightly offended sounding, "but I don't see us climbing up any magic hair!" Clover rolled her eyes as she struggled to keep up with him. For someone so muscular he sure moved like a cat. Like a mountain cat. "In the story the witch that trapped Rapunzel had to climb up her hair because the tower was under a magic spell. No one, witch or a muddling who could somehow fly, could simply fly to her window because the tower protected her from being seen," she explained as she looked up, spotting that they weren't too far from the window.

Chance yanked himself up another rock and shook his head. "Wait… The tower protected her?" he asked, reaching down and grabbing her wrist as Clover slipped, almost falling. Shaking and grasping onto the ivy vines, she mumbled a quick "thanks" before nodding. "Yes. You heard right. The tower is alive. It was built by twenty witches and twenty wizards to be a keep for valuable possession; sometimes even dark ones," Clover scowled, recalling her father once telling her that the tower had long ago been used by dark forces to hide dark creatures. "The tower fed off the magic and care the witches and wizards put into building it. It was alive. It saw Rapunzel as a friend, they say, and used the magic it had borrowed from its creators to cast a spell that would not allow anyone to simply be able to fly up to the tower. You had to climb up. But because of Rapunzel's hair it was easier for the witch who trapped her."

Clover sighed in relief as she noticed they were only a few feet from the window. She pushed herself to move faster. "Oddly enough, however, you can fly from the tower window if you wish. An odd sense of humor on the towers part I guess… Dear Merlin I should not have worn a dress for this," Clover growled. She'd been trying to ignore it since they'd started climbing, but she was starting to get annoyed every time her dress caught on the Ivy. She had pants on underneath but that was beside the point.

About to reach for the next jutting brick, Clover nearly screamed as Chance reached down and grabbed her arm before hoisting her up to his back. Instinctively she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and her legs – as best she could – around his waist. "Are you mad! You can't carry both of us! You'll fall!" Clover exclaimed loudly in his ear.

Chance panted and grit his teeth loudly as he pulled them up. "Yeah well you're the one moving to slow. We need to hurry up if we want to get back to the others in case your friend tracks Fiona down," he huffed, the muscles in his arms and legs protesting as they drew closer to the window, which was now only half a foot off. Almost there. Just keep moving.

Clover grumbled and hooked onto him as an idea came to mind. She began to chant softly, the words a mixture of English, German, and Latin. Chance's body began to glow as he felt strength pulsing through him. So much strength that his climb up began to speed up. He pulled and pushed them until he could grasp the wooden frame of the window and yank them up. He struggled to pull them through the window until they both toppled inside, Clover gasping and falling away from him. As soon as she let go, Chance felt as if any energy he had was gone.

"What did you do?" he asked, sweating heavily as he pushed himself to his feet, weakly helping Clover up. He shouldn't be this tired. He'd scaled buildings far taller than this tower and hadn't broken a sweat. Why now? "Gave you my energy," Clover moaned, rubbing her shoulders, "so we could move faster. Figured since you wanted to play muscles I could give you the energy I wasn't using… Forgot how much the tower can drain you…"

So it was the tower that made them so tired? Made sense. No way was it going to make things easy for anyone who wanted to get near its friend. "Thanks," Chance said as Clover pushed her wet red hair out of her face. She waved it off and made her way into the dark room… Which was a lot larger than Chance had expected.

"No time for thanks," Clover whispered, watching the door suddenly open on its own, "we have a meeting with The Keeper to attend."

R & R Plz

I love adding my own twists to Fairytales. It's so fun :3 Also, why yes I did make a reference to Scarlet Garter's Julia and a refrence to Charmed! Thanks Scarlet for letting me use Julia for a refrence! I may even poke a cameo for her at the end just for how relaxed and nice you were about the whole thin g :D And thanks weasel for reminding me of the Charmed gals living in San Francisco. I watched the show for years and I forgot that? How sad am I! Lol ;P

I hope this story isn't coming off as cheesy or predictable. I'm not always the best at this kind of thing even if I'm a fan of it. I just want this to have some originality to it with the magic and yet still have some familiarity to the point of not being cheesy.