Harry was jolted out of his sleep by the sounds of screams.
He sat up wildly, looking around for the source.
Then he saw it.
The boy he and Lucas had rescued had woken up and was thrashing about, tossing off the blanket as he did.
"NO! Let me go! Amethyst!" he started crying and shaking.
By this point, the other boys had woken up and started to move towards him, but Lucas threw out a hand to stop them.
"No. We don't know what the boy has been through. We can't rush him. It would scare him further." Lucas explained to Darian and Aki. "Let Harry deal with this one."
"Hey. Hey there. Calm down. You're safe with us." Harry knelt down to the boy's level and looked him in the eye.
"I'm not safe while they're out there..." the boy trembled and looked around as if he expected someone to jump out of the shadows and attack him at any moment.
"Who... First of all, what's your name? How old are you?" Harry asked gently.
"My name..? My name is Jasper and I'm nine years old..." the boy spoke quietly.
"Well, hello there, Jasper." Harry smiled reassuringly. "My name is Harry and these are my friends, Darian, Lucas and Aki." he pointed to each as he spoke. "We're students from Red Fountain. You're lucky that we were up here on a school assignment. Lucas and I managed to save you from being mauled just in time..."
"Yes, indeed." Jasper nodded. "But those people... those horrible people still have my big sister!" the boy burst into tears again.
Harry sat next to the boy with his legs criss-crossed and gently put a hand on his shoulder.
"Perhaps we can help. Do you want to tell us about it?" he asked softly.
Jasper looked around at all of them, a faint glimmer of hope in his eyes. "You... you could help me? Help us?"
"Of course we can." Aki sat on Jasper's other side. "It's what we do. It's what we're studying to do."
"I agree. We'll certainly do our best to help you." Lucas sat on Harry's other side, while Darian sat next to him.
"Like my friends said, I'm in this too. Now, are you ready to tell us your story of how you ended up here in the first place?" Darian asked.
Jasper took a deep breath, doing his best to calm himself down. "I don't know how far away from home they took us, but my big sister Amethyst and I are from Isis..."
Aki whistled. "You're pretty far away from home, Jasper. This is Magix. A non-inhabited part of the planet, but it's Magix nevertheless..."
Jasper whimpered and Harry squeezed his shoulder lightly.
Lucas perked up. "Your father was knighted a few years ago, wasn't he?"
Jasper looked directly at him. "Yes. He has done much service for my home world in the way of research and scientific discoveries. My mother runs a successful fashion label..."
"How do you know this?" Harry asked Lucas.
"I remembered Rainer telling me something about this a few days ago, but it only just clicked. Apparently Amethyst and Jasper's mother went to school with Rainer's mother at Cloud Tower..." Lucas said.
"Okay then..." Harry paused. "Jasper, do you want to tell us about yourself and your sister and what happened? We need to know so we can try to help you..."
Jasper took a deep breath. "I... okay. My parents are Garnet and Topaz De L'Or. My mother's maiden name was Argent. Both her and my father come from a long line of witches and Grey/Dark Magic users..."
He paused to wipe sweat from his face and take another deep breath.
"Ame... Amethyst and I didn't really get along very well. She's four years older than me, but she always wanted to boss me around and got mad with me when I didn't do what she wanted or if I made fun of her. But... I never wanted this to happen to her! To us!" Jasper began to panic again. "I would have never wanted her to get hurt and now that I've gotten away and she didn't... They'll hurt her! They'll kill Amethyst and it's all my fault!" Jasper began to wail and hyperventilate and Harry pulled the young boy in for a hug, albeit reluctantly.
He looked over Jasper's shoulder as he did and saw the varying expressions on his squad's faces.
All had varying degrees of pity, anger and surprise (the last one being directed, he suspected, at how good he was being with the young boy).
"It's not your fault, Jasper. You didn't ask for this to happen to you and your sister. It's no one's fault but the people who took you!" Harry exclaimed.
"But I keep thinking if I had done something different, if I had reacted differently when it happened, we wouldn't have been captured!" Jasper cried. "When we tried to make our escape, if maybe I could use magic here or if Amethyst could use magic. If I could have run faster. I could have done something. Anything!"
"Jasper, like Harry said, it's not your fault." Lucas spoke up. "It was the fault of the cretins who decided to prey on a nine year old boy and a thirteen year old girl for whatever reason. I'm sure you did everything you could."
Jasper nodded. "I guess. I just felt like... I was just there. I could have done something..."
"I used to feel the same way about things that happened to me and others around me in the past. It wasn't my fault that those things happened. You'll eventually realise that this wasn't your fault either. But that is a really long story I can tell you and your sister another time, if you want it. Right after we rescue her and bring your kidnappers to justice." Harry finally released Jasper from the long hug, watched him as he relaxed, then handed him a bottle of cool water.
Jasper took a sip and set the bottle down. "Thank you, Harry. I... We live in the capital Opulentia, but we both had birthday parties to go to that day in Peridot Bay. I was going to my friend's home and Amethyst was going to her friend's place. We'd gone, had a good time with our friends and our driver came to pick us back up. Me first, then her." he sniffled, before taking another sip of water.
"The ride was smooth going. None of us suspected that anything would happen. Amethyst didn't have a clue, I didn't have a clue, our driver Pietro didn't notice... They came out of nowhere!" Jasper began to hyperventilate again.
"We were on a quieter stretch of sky when a bigger ship approached us and starting firing some weird blasts at us that didn't damage the ship! It stalled in midair, but it didn't fall! Pietro was about to call for help, but they had connected some sort of space bridge thing to one of the doors and cut it open, ran through it and they shot him!" Jasper cried. "I don't know if he's still alive or not! We... we tried to fight back, but what could we do? Amethyst can't transform or do really powerful spells yet and neither could I! They grabbed us, put magic suppressor cuffs on us, and tied us up and tossed us into the ship! Then they shot something at me, everything went dark and the next thing I knew, I was in these horrible mountains!"
Harry, Aki, Lucas and Darian looked at one another.
"Damn. Sounds like they really planned that out. Spells to stop the ship in mid-air, yet not have it crash, the equipment to actually break into the ship itself, weapons, magic suppressor cuffs for their... captives..." Aki counted them off.
"How could they have possibly gotten hold of magic suppressor cuffs anyway? Aren't the sale and usage of those highly restricted?" Darian asked.
"They are, across all realms. Only law enforcement agencies and medical centres are allowed to purchase and use them and even then, it's highly monitored." Lucas said. "My father told me so once when we were watching a crime documentary back home and the question came up. He's had to use them himself in his line of work. For someone to have one pair of them, far less multiples..."
"Either they are corrupt members of those fields or they have corrupt friends in those fields." Harry mused. "The third option is that they somehow managed to steal them. Though if they're so highly restricted, how did they pull that off? I assume that the security levels around where these types of things are usually manufactured, transported and stored are very high..."
"What happened after you regained consciousness?" Lucas asked.
"They had... cages. In the ship. Regular bars. They tossed us in them and carried them out. Did something to attach the cages to the ground and they just sat around, talking and laughing at us. That they'd manage to kidnap two high profile targets without someone else even noticing and attempting to stop them!" Jasper exclaimed.
"I remember them having these really scary looking weapons and this one guy had a jacket and belt full of these evil looking knives, ice-picks, knife blades and other sharp, pointy things..." he shuddered at the memory.
Harry scrambled for a notepad and pen and began writing down everything Jasper could tell them.
"What did they look like? Did they use their own magic to capture you and your sister?" Lucas asked.
"I..." Jasper hesitated.
"Jasper, I know it's hard and you don't feel like you want to talk about it, but we need to know whatever we can about these people so we can take them out and save your sister as well as yourself." Harry smiled reassuringly at the boy.
"I know... I want my sister back. I'll do what it takes." the boy nodded.
Harry (and Lucas!) spent the next few minutes taking down notes of whatever the boy could tell them. What the kidnappers looked like, how they acted, what weapons and tools they appeared to have, the general appearance of the area they'd been brought to... everything that Jasper could think of to be helpful, with a few gentle proddings from the older males.
"Thank you very much, Jasper. You've told us everything you can. Now, if you'd like to go back to sleep... I know that nightmare woke you up..." Harry said.
Jasper yawned. "Yeah, it did. Will someone be here to watch me? I don't wanna wake up and find myself back with... them..." he shuddered and yawned simultaneously.
"You'll be fine. We'll keep you safe. Actually, Darian and Lucas will keep you safe. Aki and I are going on a little reconnaissance mission..." Harry stood up.
"Okay..." Jasper went back to where he had been sleeping before, wrapped the blanket around himself and settled down.
Once they were sure he was once again asleep, their chatter started again, albeit at a quieter level.
"Why do we have to stay and you two go out?" Darian queried.
"Because," Harry started, with the air of someone who believed that the answer was obvious. "Aki and I are the best of us at stealth and tracking. Lucas is good with children and can calm Jasper down again if need be. Darian, you're pretty much a physical powerhouse, so if on the off chance some of the bad guys show up, I'm sure you'd be able to literally throw a few of them around off the ground and knock them unconscious."
Darian flexed his muscles. "Yeah, you're probably right. I am the strongest man in this cave, after all. I have the biggest muscles." He flexed them again.
"You also happen to have the biggest ego as well." Lucas said coolly.
Darian rolled his eyes.
"Come on, Aki. We need to get this over with." Harry grabbed his backpack and checking a pocket of it discreetly, found his Invisibility Cloak stashed within.
Putting his wand in its holster, even though he wouldn't (or shouldn't) be able to use it, he and Aki left the cave, with a little salute to those left behind.