AN~
AlchoholicGoldfish: You're correct, it was OOC. It was also plot device because I needed to get him there. And in the books, Sabrina takes to Pinocchio remarkably quickly, if you remember? Three people suggested that it be Puck and Peter on the first day! Weird, 'cause that never entered my mind...
Nettle: Hi! You're new! Or at least new to the reviewer's circle. Welcome! I shall attempt to update quickly.
Yellow.r0se: Thanks for the review! Was it fast enough for you?
PinkAndBlack: Sorry for the cliffie. Guess what? If you get an account, the amount of story you get per chapter will be longer, on average. 'Cause I go for a word count of at least 3,000 words/chapter, and once I get close to that (counting the AN), I start to wrap it up.
Bookloverforever: Ding ding ding! You are a winner, because you were review number 900! What do you want as your prize? I'll do anything free, not to time consuming, and transferrable over the internet. Glad you liked the story! It's nice when someone agrees with my Puckabrina tactics. :) Why'd you capslock it, though?
disappointed/previously disappointed: Go on my profile, I have links for the manga there. And what do you mean, make it longer as in the length of a book? How would YOU make it longer? No offense, but you don't even have an account, and it's pretty friggin' long already, and only about halfway finished. Feel free to explain how you would make it longer, but I don't understand what you're asking.
Sabrina jumped as high as she could, flapping her wings in the closest thing to a vertical takeoff she'd ever made. She flapped her wings hard, lifting high off the ground, out of the reach of the shadowy figure who had attacked.
"I hate to say I told you so, Bella, but..." Sabrina said, looking down.
"All right, all right, you were right." Bella snapped. "Just get us home, OK? And fast. Before they get someone else who can fly out here."
"Not sure I can do that." Sabrina said. "Super-strength is not one of my abilities."
"Are you calling Red fat?" Bella teased.
"I don't care what she calls me as long as she gets us out of here." Red said, pointing down with a trembling finger.
Sabrina looked down at the five figures below her, all indistinguishable. "Who are they, I wonder?"
"Does it really matter?" Bella asked. "Worry about it later!"
Sabrina rolled her eyes, flying off. "Gosh, Red, for someone so tiny, you're heavy!" She moaned, looking down at the attackers. "Um... they're following us."
"I don't mean to weigh a lot." Red said. "At least they aren't doing anything yet."
"Why aren't they, though?" Sabrina asked. "They have to know I can fly."
"Maybe... maybe they're waiting." Red said worriedly. "For when you have to land."
"Oh, I hope not..." Sabrina said worriedly. "'Cause I don't think I can fly all the way back to the house."
They progressed in silence for a minute before Red said, "Um, Sabrina?"
"What?" Sabrina asked.
Red pointed. "One of them is growing. Fast."
Sabrina looked down, starting back when she saw what Red was pointing at. "Dangit!" She snapped. "Why? Why can we never get attacked by anyone who can't hang out in the sky?"
She flew higher and higher, but the person- another Asian man- kept growing, faster and faster.
"What is this?" Sabrina asked. "I think knowing this fairy tale would have been helpful!"
"Daphne knows it." Red said. "I wasn't sure before, and I don't remember exactly, but it's called the five Chinese brothers."
"So what happens in it?" Sabrina asked impatiently, dodging.
"I told you, I don't really remember, but there's five brothers, and they're identical. One of them accidentally kills someone with his power, so he has to be put to death, but he goes home to see his mom, and his brother who can't die from the punishment trades with him, and that happens a whole bunch of times until they give up and all go home forever."
"Do you remember what they could do?" Sabrina asked, dodging again.
"Well, one of them could stretch his legs, which kept him from drowning. I think the first one could... swallow the sea." Red said uncertainly. "But I'm not sure about the rest. Oh, I wish Daphne could talk in Frog shape!"
"Any idea at all, Red!" Sabrina said, pulling out her sword and brandishing it at the man in front of her, who grinned malicilously.
"Ummm... one of them can... hold his breath forever... I think..." Red said, pulling out her own sword.
"And the other two?" Sabrina asked, parrying awkwardly with her left hand. The man in front of her had a huge curved scimitar, but he didn't seem to be a natural swordsman, which put them almost level, because he still had the advantage of his dominant hand.
"I don't remember!" Red said worriedly. "Something about fire, and... I don't know... his neck or something..."
"So why are they all together?" Sabrina asked. "And why did they trade off? I mean, what if they'd switched the way they were going to execute him at the last minute?"
"I know that one." Bella said. "Their life forces are tied together. If one dies, they all die. We studied people like that in Biology."
"So if I take one of them out, they're all down for the count?" Sabrina asked.
"Yeah, that's right." Bella said. "In theory."
"Red, take over with the swordplay!" Sabrina snapped. "I'm going to start working on the others!"
"O-OK..." Red said in a quavering voice.
Sabrina flew up another three feet, turning a bit so that Red could fight with the long-legged man, and began forming a fireball, aiming at one of the men below her. But now they were circling, trading places, making it very difficult for her to track them when they were so far below her. She threw the fireball at one of them, aiming carefully.
"Ow!" Red cried, causing Sabrina to turn.
Red was bleeding from a cut on her arm. Sabrina tried to decide who to focus on, Red, or the men below, none of whom had been hit with a fireball yet.
"You OK?" Sabrina asked, dogdging the swinging sword of the man she had internally dubbing stilts.
"Yeah, it's just a scratch." Red assured her. "But it's really hard to fight when you're dangling by one arm a hundred feet off the ground."
"Here, I'll..." instead of finishing her sentence, Sabrina removed Red's gravity to explain her plan. "Better?"
Red nodded. "Kind of. But this is going to take some getting used to, too."
"We don't have time for you to get used to it!" Bella shrieked.
Sabrina shook her head and turned back to the four men milling below her, creating another fireball. She aimed carefully again, then threw it down, hitting one of the men square on the head.
Nothing happened.
"Dangit!" Sabrina cried, dodging the sword that was coming for her face. "Red, when you said fire, what did you mean exactly?"
"I dunno!" Red said, blocking the sword awkwardly.
"Could it maybe have been that he doesn't burn?" Sabrina snapped. "'Cause I just threw a fireball at him and nothing happened!"
"Maybe..." Red said in a very small voice.
"Auuugh!" Sabrina wailed angrily. "Anything else important I should know?"
"I told you, I don't remember!" Red said, and, for once, she sounded angry.
Sabrina rolled her eyes and turned back to the men below her, creating another fireball in one hand and a mass of water in the other.
"Why don't you hit the guy in front of us?" Bella croaked. "He's not fireproof!"
"I'll catch us on fire, too!" Sabrina snapped, aiming carefully. "I can't hit him with anything without it bouncing back at us!"
She threw her projectiles down, but the fireball missed completely and the mass of water was swallowed by another of the men.
"Ah, crud." Sabrina muttered.
Three seconds later, the water was spewed back up at them at twice its original speed. Sabrina managed to dodge it for the most part, but Red still got very wet, and Sabrina was splattered.
"Ew!" Bella cried. "He just spit on you!"
"Says the girl who sticks to the ceiling with sticky stuff she lets out of her skin." Sabrina pointed out. "Sorry, Red."
"S'OK." Red said, her teeth chattering slightly, raising her sword again.
"You good?" Sabrina asked, pulling her sword out again just in time to block Stilts' next blow.
Red nodded, sliding her sword in next to Sabrina's. "Get back to fighting the ones down there."
"Right." Sabrina smiled grimly and turned back to the men on the ground, still holding her sword, in her right hand this time, leaving her left unhampered to strike at the men below.
This time she focused on one she was sure she hadn't touched before, encasing him in an impenetrable barrier, hoping to suffocate him until he passed out- not 'til death, she wasn't that cruel, but enough that they would all be put of commission. But just in case, she turned to the next and threw another fireball down at him.
She stared, shocked and angry. What were the chances of her throwing the fireball at the same man three times in a row?
"Whichever one I do something to, that one's always the one that it doesn't effect!" Sabrina shouted. "Something's up here. That's not natural."
Red didn't respond, maybe because she was panting too hard to say anything, but Bella spoke up.
"What if they're switching?" She asked. "What if they're not just connected by life force, what if they can change position, too? They could see what you're throwing and trade places. That makes a lot more sense than the jailer letting them home every day!"
"Crap crap crap crap!" Sabrina wailed. "And I can't lock them all in a bubble and still keep Red floating, not if I want to stay in the air for very long."
"What about taking over?" Bella asked.
Sabrina shook her head. "I haven't got a big energy store yet. I'm working on it, but I have no magical stamina. I'm getting tired already. Sorry, guys."
"So... that's it, then?" Bella asked. "We're dead? You're giving up?"
"Of course I'm not giving up!" Sabrina snapped. "But yeah, we're dead, unless someone comes up with a better solution."
Red's sword suddenly fell, landing directly on one of the other men. There was a clang of metal on metal, then the man bent down to pick up the sword that had fallen on his neck.
"Oops." Red muttered.
But when the man with the iron neck picked up the sword, it suddenly stopped shining in the light from the small fires Sabina had started and the man shouted.
"Sabrina?" Bella asked. "Can you put out those fires?"
"Not right now." Sabrina said tightly, shifting so that she was in front of Stilts. "Kind of in the middle of something."
Sabrina fought the man for several minutes, getting increasingly exhausted, before Red came up with the obvious solution.
"Stop time!" She shouted.
"If I do that when I'm like this, I'll probably pass out." Sabrina snapped. "It's too risky. I might not be able to hold it, and you guys could end up stranded in the middle of them all!"
"Do it!" Red snapped. "It's the only way, and if you wait much longer, we'll definitely be in trouble, no matter what you do!"
"We're not helpless, Sabrina." Bella reminded her. "It's OK."
Sabrina sighed, nodded, and took a deep breath.
Everything stopped.
And then Sabrina fell, taking the other girls with her.
They landed in a heap, not two inches from one of the men, gaining some bruises but not hurt badly.
"Sabrina?" Red asked, shaking the blonde worriedly.
Sabrina groaned, not opening her eyes. "Sh." She said after a while. "I have to concentrate to hold this. Don't distract me."
She sat up, Indian style, pulled Daphne and Bella out of her sweatshirt pocket, and, resting her elbows on her knees, began to rub her temples with a fierce expression on her face. Bella and Daphne shifted back to their natural forms and watched her worriedly for a few minutes.
"Now what do we do?" Daphne asked, looking at Bella.
"What do you mean, what do we do?" Bella asked. "I'm not in charge here!"
"Well, you're the oldest!" Daphne snapped. "And you always say my plans are stupid! I bet even if I had the best idea on the planet, you'd shoot it down like that!" She tried to snap her fingers and failed.
"Nice." Bella rolled her eyes. "Do you have a great plan, then, oh wise one?"
"Guys!" Sabrina snapped.
"Sorry." Daphne said quietly. "We have to get out of here while she can still hold time still. But we can't carry Sabrina, she's too heavy, and I think if she walks, she'll lose her concentration."
"So what if we..." Red started.
"If we what?" Daphne asked, when Red trailed off into nothingness.
"Never mind." Red said, shivering a little and trying to pull her arm attached to Sabrina's closer to her body.
"Red, we've got no ideas." Bella pointed out. "We're all exhausted and temperamental and going to die if you don't speak up, we might die. What's your idea?"
"Well, you're concentrating of getting us away before they move again, right?" Red asked. "What if we get out of here before they even show up?"
"How do you mean?" Bella asked.
But Daphne's eyes lit up, and she turned to her sister, asking, "Do you think you've got enough juice left to take us back in time? Just an hour or two?"
Sabrina nodded wearily, and the girls were privileged to see the whole scene play backwards in front of them, themselves rising into the air, followed by Red's sword and several fireballs, a jet of water first shooting from Red's clothes to one of the men's mouths and back to Sabrina's hand, and then the girls landed back on the ground. The four men jumped backwards into the shadows, the girls walked out of sight, and then the sky began to grow lighter and lighter, until school appeared to have just gotten out recently.
"Stop!" Daphne shouted.
Sabrina did, and everything started to move again as she fell over with a thud.
"I think she's out for good this time." Red said, poking Sabrina's arm.
"We'll have to go get someone." Daphne said, looking at Bella. "Sorry, Red, but you have to stay here, OK? Maybe steal Sabrina's sword, since you lost yours."
Daphne and Bella stood up and ran off, leaving Red alone in the November sunlight with the comatose form of Sabrina.
"I feel bad, leaving her helpless like that." Daphne said worriedly.
"She'll be OK." Bella said breezily. "She's got a sword, it's daylight, and we'll be back soon."
Their run slowed to a walk after about fifteen minutes because both girls were exhausted, and it was over half an hour before they reached the school, where the crowd looked exactly as it had before they'd left earlier that day. In fact, Sabrina and Red were just taking to the sky- to search for Bella and Daphne, presumably. The two girls ducked, waiting for the Sabrina and Red of earlier that afternoon to fly out of sight before hurrying over to where Puck and Peter were arguing again. It was only when they got there that Daphne realized they'd made the entire trip with no fights.
"Wassup, Marshmallow?" Puck asked, turning away from his current shouting match when Daphne yanked on his ears. "Weren't you going to find Pinocchio?"
"We did." Daphne said. "And Sabrina and Red followed us, but-"
"Wait, if you left, how are you back already?" Peter asked. "Was he, like, right here?"
"Shut up and stop interrupting." Puck snapped at Peter.
"Thank you." Bella said. "We're back 'cause we had to rewind time."
"Wait, so where's Sabrina?" Puck asked, suddenly alert.
"Now look who's interrupting, loverboy." Peter sneered.
"Shut up." Puck blushed.
"I want to know what happened later, but that's not important right now." Daphne said. "We got attacked 'cause we didn't get out 'til nighttime, and we had to fight them off, and Red got hurt and Sabrina passed out and they're stuck on a back street near the edge of town, and you need to go get them! Now!"
Puck shot into the air, and, ignoring Peter's protests, said, "Lead the way, Marshmallow."