Disclaimer: I own nothing of GI Joe, which is owned by Hasbro. Only the plot is mine and I make no money from this.
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Duke shook his head as he took in the sight of the crater in what had once been a nice little park.
He glanced over at Scarlett, "Failed summoning?"
She nodded, crouching down to look at the remains of a symbol scratched into the dirt, "Either that or a magical trap gone wrong. See, this is the symbol for holding, which can be used for either."
She traced the symbol a few inches above it in the air with her finger, shaking her head as she did so, "It's not complete either. They forgot a line here and the ending mark there. It's a basic one as well, so if they messed up one this easy, I bet they messed up on the other symbols too."
Duke frowned, "Expelled apprentice you think?"
She shook her head again, "Nah, they're drilled too hard in the basics by the time they reach apprenticeship. This is either someone who took a few classes and then quit or they got their hands on a spell book and wanted to try it out without training."
He looked around at the park, locating their other teammates and their areas of search, "Think we'll find anything else?"
Scarlett stood up, clapping her hands together to dust them off, "I doubt it. If they didn't have enough training to avoid these mistakes, I bet they stood in the circle or right next to it. Anyone who's properly trained wouldn't have made these basic errors. The results of these mistakes aren't exactly unforeseen if you have a teacher or at least a basic understanding of magical symbols."
Duke nodded distractedly, trying to figure out what to do now, "Could you trace the magic?"
Scarlett frowned but seemed to consider it, "I can try, but there's a lot of interference here. It'll take a few hours at best and I can't guarantee perfect results."
"Anything you can get will help, even if it's just flicker," he told her, even if it was redundant to remind her of that.
She gave him a half smile and moved to go back to the ROCC, "Just let me get some of my gear and I'll do what I can."
Duke gave her another nod and moved to give the area another search. As he'd said, anything they could find would help and that covered physical as well as magical.