"There is a great many things that can go wrong with necromancy, one of the most common things that do go wrong is what?" Namach asked pacing the front of the room, decked out in bloodmetal and fancy clothes as always. He was also still wearing the long crimson cloak, he'd changed many times over the last several days but had kept the red cloak over his shoulders consistently. Rahkesh wondered if that was for identification since he had a rogue golem, actually that made a lot of sense.

"Most basic mistakes will end up summoning a zombie which will attack anyone and everyone it can." Silas replied sitting to Rahkeshs' right and looking very interested, they were all very excited because they would be learning to do a dead summoning soon. Well, first they would have to successfully create an inferi but once they proved they could do that they would be allowed to do a dead summoning. They would have to do it twice, once using black necromancy and once using white. He wasn't super excited to do the white but he was really looking forward to doing the black summoning, he supposed that was probably a twisted thought since black necromancy required a lot of self inflicted pain, however white required torturing and killing someone else and was also less stable so he wasn't as twisted as the members of the white order right?

"Very good." Namach purred. "Remember that, it will be on your tests." He walked over to his black board and turned to face the class. "Now can anyone tell me how to summon an inferi?" He looked as if he didn't expect anyone to know but Rahkesh had always been an overachiever.

"You cast a certain spell through the corpse to summon back a piece of their soul." Rahkesh said, certain that he was right. The night before he had gone to see Namach about the ritual to unblock his forms and the ancient had hinted that they would be starting this today so he had gone back to his rooms and read a few books on necromancy summonings, after setting up his trap for Daray of course. Daray had returned that morning only about fifteen minutes before necromancy class so he hadn't gotten into his rooms yet, but soon, very soon.

"Yes and no, if you were to do only that you would create yourself a zombie. Does anyone know the step he left out?" Rahkesh was disappointed, he had thought that was all there was to an inferi but then again the book he had read about inferi was translated from another language so it would make sense that a few things were lost in translation. Just as Namach was about to continue the classroom door burst open. "TRISTAN!" Nvara yelled sending every student in the room to tears from her voice magics. Striding into the room she glanced up to her left at Rahkesh then back to Namach. "May I have a word?" She practically growled, turned and marched back out the door. Namach watched her go, sighed, dropped and shook his head and followed her out, door closing behind him. Rahkesh, thinking fast sent out his magic to follow them.

"You said you would tell me." She sounded angrier than Rahkesh had ever heard her.

"What he did was a little unexpected but he didn't transform yet so technically you haven't missed anything. When I had arrived he had already started his massacre and close as he came he is still just himself, I can put what I have in a pensieve if you'd like to see it, it was rather spectacular."

"I want to see it in person Tristan, when it finally happens you have better let me know. I have felt his magic since he returned, does he even know the extent of what he can do? Does he know where this form of magic comes from?"

"Not even close, I intend to train him but he needs to actually finish his transformation first. If he knew what he is turning into..." Namachs words were cut off as Rahkesh was ripped back to the present, someone was yelling his name and shaking him. Before he could recognize what was going on his instincts took over. BOOM! "GAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" It was Daray, he was shaking Rahkesh and yelling his name to get his attention and now he was flipping through the air shrieking like a little girl and wreathed in lightning. Oops. Rahkesh thought to himself as Daray crash landed on Namachs desk sending all of their professors things off of it in a crash. "Mo-motherfu-motherfucker!" He bellowed at Rahkesh whilst struggling to get back to his feet, the entire class laughing as he twitched from the remains of the lightning. Rahkesh quickly turned his attention back towards the door but was blocked by anti-eavesdropping spells. Were those there the whole time? He wondered.

"You sadistic asshole!" Daray was still sparking and twitching as he still struggled to get up off of Namachs desk, the door opened and Namach walked in. He looked at Daray, looked up at Rahkesh then back to Daray. "KAAAAAHHHHHHHRRRRGGGGHHHH!" He banished Daray off his desk back towards Darays own desk where he landed with another loud crash snapping his desk into pieces, Daray quickly got to his feet, brushed his shirt off and ripped a piece of wood out of his shoulder. He turned to Rahkesh with a murderous glare and stuck the bloody piece of wood in his face. "Fuck you." He growled before wandlessly repairing his desk and sitting down.

"So, where were we?" Namach asked with a smirk as he too repaired his desk wandlessly.

"Inferi." A student said still chuckling at the chaos.

"Right, to summon an inferius you must cast a spell through the corpse to the other side to summon a piece of it's soul back into it but you must attach a tiny piece of your own dead soul to it so that it will do what you wish, if you seek control over it then it must in some way be attached to you. Since that piece of your soul is already dead when the inferius dies again that tiny sliver of your soul will be unaffected. Furthermore since a piece of the inferius' soul is summoned back into it it will prevent anyone from being able to read your mind or soul through the inferius, except of course if an elf or myself were to try, but that is neither here nor there. If you wish to summon multiple inferi at the same time all you must do is spread that dead piece of your soul thinner to cover all of them.

This is why the first thing we will be doing is to kill a tiny piece of your soul, a very miniscule fragment, this will be very difficult and at least one of you will die performing this step. It happens every year, at least one student decides to go forth in this class when they do not have the capability to perform this step. If you do not feel capable, if you have any doubt or your instincts tell you not to, I strongly urge you to drop the class. I say this every year, it is better to drop the class than die and alas, there is still always at least one.

The process of killing a piece of your soul will be done using bloodmagic, it will be easier for the vampire students since they are technically already dead and therefore have a strong connection to death. One of you has already performed this step and will not need to do this but I urge this student to pay close attention anyways for this process will be on more than one written exam." Namach glanced at Rahkesh before walking over to and leaning against his desk. "This will not be like any bloodmagic ritual any of you have preformed, you will have to create a soul sucking vortex using a very precise ritual and toss a fragment of soul through before carefully closing the vortex and summoning the remainder of your soul back around you. Though if done right you will only lose a very tiny fragment you will still immediately feel extremely weak and will continue to for a week or so, depending on how much you kill depends on how long you will feel weak for. If you fail to close the vortex your soul will be sucked into death and you will die, I cannot stop any of you from performing this ritual but if I feel you are not ready I will tell you so."

XXXX

"What the fuck was that all about?" Daray asked Rahkesh as they left class, Silas laughed.

"Sorry, I've been a little... off since the last battle with the demons." Rahkesh replied a little sheepish.

"Yeah, that one was rather gruesome but whatever you did Rahkesh. Well, it worked, I only wish I could've seen more before Namach activated everyone's portkeys.." Silas said as they walked along heading for lunch.

"The rumors I've heard are something pretty spectacular." Daray prodded. Rahkesh didn't need to be told about the rumors, he could tell from the looks he was getting from all of their fellow peers that there were plenty of rumors going around. It gave him horrible flashbacks to his time at Hogwarts, he was the subject of every rumor there.

"I uh, I went across the life/death border and summoned death into the realm of the living, or summoned the battlefield into the dead realm. I don't really know what I did or how I did it, I just acted on instinct, and I almost died when I encountered the nightwalker..." Rahkesh trailed off, giving Daray the short and simple itinerary.

"You actually survivedan encounter with a nightwalker?" Daray startled staring incredulously at Rahkesh.

"Only thanks to Namach." Rahkesh sighed, it was only mildly embarrassing that his teacher had to save him. "He showed up just before the nightwalker was going to 'consume me' and I didn't survive unscathed either. The nightwalker put blocks in my magic to prevent me from being able to use either animal form, Namach and I have been planning a ritual for me to unblock them but I'll be fine for now." Rahkesh replied as they took their seats in the dining hall.

"Sounds pretty serious, so of course, you'll do just fine." Silas said glancing towards the entrance of the dining hall as Ally came running in. Slamming down a newspaper and sitting at their table.

"They've recalled earths fighters! We're giving them earth!" She was clearly pissed off about this but probably only because she genuinely had a great time fighting them in battle and this news meant that they would no longer be allowed off school grounds.

"What about your friends the Chachapoyaro?" Rianae asked taking a seat to Rahkeshs' right and glancing sideways at him. "Something about you feels different." She silently uttered under her breath.

"Long story and I'm not sure." Rahkesh replied closing his eyes and reaching out for the familiar feel of his friends mind.

"Nic!" He sent over as he felt the connection.

"Oh, hi Rahkesh." He sent back, infuriatingly calm as ever.

"Did you hear? Earth is giving up the fight? Did the MLFC contact you about this?"

"Oh that, yes. We told them that we would be happy to step in and start fighting but they told us no. 'We would like you to stay put and stay safe, we have great reason to believe that we will need you and everyone you have to offer, but it might not be for the demons.' Gave off a very ominous feeling, I think they are anticipating a bigger enemy at some point. They refused to tell us anything more though." Rahkesh laughed, just like Ally, Nic seemed disappointed over this decision and clearly for the same reasons. Humorous though he found it, it also greatly disturbed Rahkesh, the MLFC was clearly saving their fighters for another fight, a fight that they clearly thought would be a bigger fight than the demons.

"What could be worse than the demons?" He asked but before Nic could respond Rahkesh decided he didn't want an answer, Nic just laughed.

"I don't know but we better get some piece of the pie, my people will be pissed if we got pulled out of time for nothing."

"Oh I'm quite sure you'll get a good deal of fighting in." He sent back before opening his eyes and returning to the conversation with his friends. "They told the Chachapoyaro that they don't think it's worth losing fighters for anymore, the shelters have all been filled and the demons still have millions of fighters to send through so at this point we would be losing fighters for no reason." Rahkesh told his friends who had been eagerly watching as he had his little telepathic conversation with his friend.

"Fair enough I guess, might as well save the fighters to defend the shelters and protect whatever they can until the new world is ready." Silas said with a shrug.

"What about your family? Am I even allowed to ask?" Ally raised an eyebrow, glancing between Silas and Daray.

Daray shrugged. "Doesn't really matter if you know. The family is holed up in the family mansion, it and it's enchantments are more than enough to keep out any pesky little demons. Nothing short of the demon king could even get close to it." He stated between bites.

"Cyala doesn't want you two to return home?" Rahkesh asked, he had thought the matriarch of assassins would have wanted the two youngest members of her family under her protection at such a time as when earth stopped fighting.

"Probably thinks they're safe enough with you as their babysitter thunder." Ally said drawing laughter from everyone except the two glaring vampires.

"No, she didn't say anything about it but I'm pretty sure grandmother and the headmistress had a little spat about it." Silas replied.

"Grandmother did say that Akren is about as safe as the family fortress so it probably wasn't too much of an argument." Daray rolled his eyes.

"Does anyone know if the MLFC is still operating?" Rahkesh asked as he hadn't heard anything about them except just now regarding how they resigned the fight.

"Yes, they have their own secure bunker somewhere and are still very much keeping tabs on everything invasion related." Rianae stated.

XXXX

As they walked into Rahkeshs' room Rahkesh couldn't help but smirk, in all the news and things going on he had almost forgotten about his trap for Daray. That beautiful little pensieve perfectly disguised as his couch sinisterly waiting for that rabid little vampires ass. Rahkesh was particularly proud of this one, while most people believed that pensieves were only capable of holding and replaying memories there were in fact enchanted pensieves, the more expensive kind that could also hold illusions.

With a little bloodmagic and necromantic enchanting on a particularly expensive one that Rahkesh had quickly and discreetly snuck out to buy, he had combined memories and illusions that could actually be felt so that the next time Daray attempted to sit on his couch he would get a nasty little.. shock. As he watched Daray approach his couch he realized that it was all about to go terribly wrong, the lousy vampire dove off to the side and stole his cousins armchair before Silas had the chance to sit down.

With a slight look of shock Silas eagerly accepted the most comfortable couch in all of Akren, stunned by shock Rahkesh didn't call out a warning to his friend fast enough and before his very eyes Silas plopped down onto and disappeared into his couch, snapping the illusion on it and showing off the fancy little pensieve that sat there instead. Dead silence filled the room except for the faint echoing screams of Rahkeshs' poor vampire friend.

Daray slowly and deviously looked over at Rahkesh and in that moment Nuri ran to the rescue, diving headfirst into the pensieve. "NO!" Rahkesh yelled too late as Nuri's furry black tail disappeared into the pensieve and suddenly the room was full of faint screams, hisses, roars and explosions as Silas suffered the punishments Rahkesh had worked so hard on and reserved for Daray. For a moment the two glared at each other, Daray wearing his best Cheshire grin and then Ally and Rianae broke into laughter as Silas' screams turned to screeching shrieks.

"Oh no." Rahkesh moaned, he had also enchanted the pensieve so that one could not escape until the maze was completed, while not particularly long it was particularly brutal. Sighing and deciding not to run and hide Rahkesh grabbed another arm chair off his desk, enlarged it and sat down grumbling about how he would have to come up with another prank for his overly smug vampire friend.

As Silas appeared Daray finally burst out into laughter himself. Silas looked authentically razed, dirt and grime smeared all over him coupled with various ooze of different colors, several patches of skin were burnt to a crisp, an entire section of his long brown hair was missing and his clothes were completely shredded to rags. His panther, crouched beside him looked fine if not horribly frightened. Rahkesh laughed darkly before his friend whipped out his wand and started casting spells, hexes and jinxes.

Rahkesh expected retaliation but he did not however expect a full fledged duel to take place in his rooms, reacting fast Rahkesh jumped out of his armchair as it came alive and grew very large and sharp teeth that tried to shred him. Thrusting out a shield Rahkesh deflected three spells that would have sufficiently rearranged his body parts. Both Silas and Rahkesh took the opportunity to send and deflect magic towards a distracted Daray, Silas because he was mad about Daray deliberately setting him up to fall into a trap meant for him and Rahkesh because he was a little sour that Daray had seen through his trap but Daray was never an easy target and in moments there was so much hostile magic flying around Rahkeshs' room that Ally and Rianae were sent running for the door.

The duel didn't last too very long before they were all in such close proximity that it degraded into a three-way fist fight that slowly and steadily destroyed everything in Rahkeshs' rooms. At one point Silas was banished through Rahkeshs' desk, another Rahkesh had grabbed and enlarged his actual couch as he swung it down and smashed it over Darays head. Daray however was more hurt by the destruction of the couch rather than the physical pain it caused. By the time their duel was over there were craters in the walls, ceiling and floor. All of the furniture was scattered into smoking and burning pieces covering everything. Rahkeshs' bed had been blown into a million pieces of fluff, the bathroom door had been splintered into a thousand skewers that were now sticking out of the walls and covered in blood and goo.

All three of them were strewn and exhausted about the room. Silas slouched on the floor against the wall by what used to be Rahkeshs' office covered in cuts and burns and still with dirt, grime, shredded clothes and missing bits of hair. Daray lying on the floor in the entryway with the main door to Rahkeshs' rooms trying to eat his head, his screams and grunts from the attempts of escape the only sounds in the room, besides of course the crackling of a few smoldering fires and Rahkesh was currently attempting to extract himself from his place on the wall where he had been impaled on the spikes from his bathroom door and cemented there with flesh eating concrete from a rather nasty spell Daray had used.

Pausing out of pain and exhaustion Rahkesh couldn't help but laugh, this two and a half hour duel was nastier and meaner than most mortal enemies would put each other through and him and his two best friends would undoubtedly still be best friends, in fact once they all got back on their feet his two best friends would probably help him to clean and repair his rooms.

BOOM! Wood and shrapnel were sent flying across the room. "Fuck!" Daray grouched having finally extricated himself from Rahkeshs' front door via the use of his wand and an explosive spell that blasted Rahkeshs' door off it's hinges and into about a thousand pieces.

"Ah, would you like some help there or shall I give you a few more jinxes?" He asked sitting up and looking over at Rahkesh.

"A little help would be nice." Rahkesh winced. "This is a pretty good piece of magic." He continued referring to the flesh eating cement that Daray had conjured for him.

"Yes, I've been playing around with it to see if it could be altered for the demons. I was never able to get it to eat through the scales though." Daray replied whilst conjuring a little fire that seemed to make the cement melt away rather quickly. "And a little fire is all it takes to get rid of it and demons breathe fire so."

XXXXX

After cleaning up Rahkeshs' rooms from their duel the trio sat around his fireplace and discussed the destroyed Chachapoyaro staff, it still deeply depressed Rahkesh that it was gone. Silas had suggested that he ask Nic to make him a new one but it wouldn't be the same, especially with Xeri and Vey having long since passed away. Rahkesh did however silently decide to himself that he would make himself a new staff from his bloodtree, it was, after all, an extremely powerful tree that is uniquely his. A magical staff made in the same fashion as a wand could do some incredible things and could hold many different cores rather than just one or two.

A magical staff of the sort would allow a wizard to fight in many different styles and be able to cast magic from the staff as if it were a wand, the only downside was that if he made a staff with multiple cores then it wouldn't be capable of being shrunk down and stored in his ear. The world of magic had some very nice staff holsters, if a little expensive, and the staff could be disguised. Rahkesh also remembered that he still had quite a store of rare magical artifacts that he could put into it. With a little research he had found that a little yeck fur, as itself or powdered and added to the wood, would allow for the staff (or wand) to be very easily disguised and hidden. While this was a pleasant revelation he wished he had figured this out before constructing his wand, even though the elves could most likely see through any type of deception.

Namach had told Rahkesh that he needed to be wary of the elves from now on. He had said to him that they would sense the wand and almost any encounter with an elf would result in a duel to the death. Rahkesh could also sense his professors magic around him better than ever before, unsure why he could sense it so much unnerved him. He tried to imagine it was from the magic that the ancient king of vampires had left implanted in his neck but he had a feeling it was more than that. Feeling an impending sense of doom Rahkesh sighed and stood from his armchair, it wasn't quite so comfortable as it was before he had been impaled on it's pieces anyway. Grabbing his store of rare things and picking up a sulking Sygra he set off back to his little cottage that housed his elven blood tree.

"Perhaps it is time you return that tree to your balcony." Sygra stated with only a slight amount of attitude.

"I'm sorry we destroyed your cage Sygra, we did put it all back together and we even returned all the mice to the cage as well." Rahkesh apologized for what had to be the hundredth time. Upon deciding to leave he had to go and get granted permission from the headmistress, while he talked with her about what he would be doing Sygra had gotten into a stand off with Nvaras snow leopard putting Rahkesh in an awkward situation, while Nvara found this humorous Rahkesh didn't fancy having to end that fight.

"That silly blood sucker is just lucky I didn't use my newest venom on him, he would have slowly decayed and made your rooms to smell delicious." Sygra ever so sadistically teased.

"I would not call that a very pleasant smell and it took four potions, several healing spells and over an hour to wake him. Also he didn't mean to hit your cage Sygra." Silas had cast a rather nasty reducto curse at Daray during their fight, Daray had deflected it and Rahkesh had dove out of it's way rather than trying to shield, unfortunately he had been standing in front of his familiars cage. Sygra had been in her cage at the time and the explosion had enraged her, she targeted Silas as he had been the one to cast the spell. Being a snake she was faster and more nimble than the vampire resulting in her pumping him full of most of her venoms. Poor Silas had staggered back and collapsed against the wall unconscious. Even with his vampiric and bloodmagic enhanced healing he wasn't able to use that leg for the rest of the day.

"He deserved worse but hopefully he learned his lesson about messing around near my cage."

"Cockiness can kill you know." Rahkesh warned. He did want to return his bloodtree back to his Akren balcony but it was almost too large to move and he didn't think that the headmistress would be too pleased about it.

Rahkesh wasn't sure what to expect of the world since the demons had been granted free reign, he knew he would have to pretend to be muggle as much as possible but the demons would still probably sense him. He had read up on a few books about transportation and found that the least detectable form of transportation for a wizard was a form of bloodmagic that linked two near-identical stones together, a simple drop of blood would activate a sort of doorway between the two stones that only worked for the person who had performed the ritual on the stones. While this form was the least detectable form and seemingly very accurate and easy to do, Rahkesh did not yet have the two stones where he needed them.

Rahkesh had performed the ritual a mere three hours before and had left one of the stones in his rooms at Akren, the other was stowed neatly inside the locket of his necklace. The downside of the ritual he had performed on the stones was that the magic would break if he tried to perform any other type of magic on it so he was unable to conceal, resize or disguise them. A tradeoff he found fair considering the transportation between stones gave off an undetectable amount of magic, meaning he would henceforth be able to visit this cottage of his without the possibility of alerting the demons to the location.

"This might be harder than you originally thought.." Sygra whispered as they emerged from the Akren valley into the neighboring city, the city used to be almost entirely a magical city and it was simply no more. The magic of the yeck cap, Rahkesh quickly realized, was at present the most valuable possession of magic that he had. While it was magic, it didn't give off any magic when he used it because it had become so much a part of him. It was mainly for this reason that Nvara had allowed him the expedition, well that and that he had done magic shielding bloodmagic rituals that allowed him to disguise his magic particularly well. Standing there invisible Rahkesh couldn't quite believe his eyes, the once fancy and alive City was completely razed. Buildings were reduced to rubble, the ones that weren't were still destroyed. Rahkesh could see several buildings where walls were blown apart, roofs torn off, charred walls roofs and signs of fights from people who clearly weren't prepared were evident here and there. Pools of blood, random body parts and shredded magical artifacts scattered around everywhere.

Rahkesh glanced left as he heard a roar and several demons took to the air from behind the remains of a building. Silently Rahkesh marveled at the magics protecting Akren for this used to be city was literally at the bottom of the valley and the demons still had yet to discover any magic of it. Deciding it best not to apparate with so many demons around Rahkesh kept walking towards the non-magical community on the other side of the city in the hopes of finding a smaller demonic presence but what he found surprised him. The non-magical community there seemed to be only slightly less slaughtered but only in the sense that most of the buildings were at least standing, as far as life goes it was much worse. Bodies lined the streets, all savagely torn apart, muggle weapons lay everywhere and even in some cases still in the hands of a dead muggle.

"We thought they wouldn't go after the muggles..."

"Perhaps they saw the massacre over the hill and jumped in to help without knowing what was going on, the demons not wanting to involve the muggle world decided to slaughter them all so as not to warn the rest of the world." Sygra whispered back while staring down a small home to their left. "There's someone alive in there." She continued.

"Muggle?" Rahkesh asked starting towards the small obliterated home and lightly reaching out with his mind to sense the presence.

"Either they are muggle or they are very good at disguising their magic." Getting closer Rahkesh found the mind of what was clearly a muggle as he could read their thoughts and memories easier than he could a book. Sensing further, he could tell that they were hiding under a trap door in the floor and as he got closer he could hear weaping. Glancing around and not seeing or sensing any demons Rahkesh decided to focus a little further on the recent memories of this muggle and he staggered at what he saw.

Gunshots rang out as this muggle woman awoke from her bed, screams, shouts and roaring that sounded to the muggle as if a lion had been fed magma and been angry about it. The muggle woman jumped from her bed and ran towards the living room of their small quaint little home, she tripped as the home shook and pictures of her and her husband fell from the walls shattering glass all over the floor. "What on earth is going on?!" She yelled at her husband who stood before the window next to the front door. With a start the small portly blond haired man turned around and gave his wife a sad look.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

"It appears to be the end of the world Madeline." Closing the curtain of the window beside him he quickly and quietly walked over to her and hugged her. "There are beasts winging around the village, you will have to go under the trap door there and await the end of this all." He said sadly.

"But what of you?" She asked staring into his dark eyes. "There isn't room for two under there and I cannot go on without you!"

"Ssshhh!" The man thrust a finger to her lips and glanced back towards the door. "No Madeline, there isn't room for us both, even if there was someone must conceal the trap door. All of our friends and neighbors are out there dying." The man leaned in and kissed her and in that moment it was almost as if Madeline had awoken from a nightmare and everything was okay, that they would simply go back to bed. They pulled apart and the man brushed a tear from her cheek, he opened his mouth to say something but before he could something smashed through the window he had just been peering out of.

Whatever the thing was that smashed through the window came in with such velocity that it cracked the wall above the fireplace and bounced over towards the couple standing in shock, showering them both in red. As the human head rolled to a stop at Madelines feet they recognized their neighbor and good friend Robert, out of sheer terror Madeline screamed. Almost instantly they heard something crash into the roof. "Go!" Her husband urged pushing her towards the trap door.

Obeying her husband Madeline yanked the trap door open, squeezed inside the small dusty crawl space and turned back towards where her husband Johnathan was. Thinking quickly of defense the man had run to the fireplace and ripped his favorite family heirloom off the now cracked mantel, a long, curved and very sharp katana that had been handed down generations in his family. A tiny smirk played across his lips, though he knew he was surely about to die he had always dreamed of using this weapon.

A choked sob shook him from his gaze of the sword and the man rushed over to his wife. "There is no time my love." He told her with a determined expression. "Stay here and stay hidden until it is safe to leave, remember to not make a sound lest they will find you." With that he kissed his hand and gently caressed her cheek before shoving her head down, slamming the trap door and dragging the small brown carpet of the living room over it.

No sooner than the carpet stopped moving did the roof come crashing in with possibly the loudest sound Madeline had ever heard, covering her mouth she was barely able to restrain herself from crying out and then again as she heard a voice so clearly not from earth. "A noble and worthy weapon you display." It said in an earth rumbling deep, rough and gravelly voice. "A muggle wielding an enchanted blade, I can see this does not come as a surprise to you." The thing spoke to her husband above, hard though it was to understand with it's deep menacing voice and the sounds of hammers and knives scraping on the floor as it and her husband circled each other. "Your terror smells delicious, the concoction of terror and bravery will be oh so sweet on my tongue."

As soon as the last word left it's mouth Madeline heard a great smattering of sounds followed by a yell of defiance from her husband and an earsplitting shriek. "I am well aware of this blades enchantments, I hail from a long line of wizards and I will take you down with me!" Madelines husband said so valiantly before another round of destruction, yelling and roaring. Madeline started to hold out hope for a split moment before she heard her husband gasp.

"Yesssss, I taste the victory. You humans, so noble and brave yet all it takes is one good strike to defeat you. That is a fine blade you have. I can taste in your blood a very prized bloodline, I have skillfully killed many of your ancestors in my realm." Madeline was deeply disturbed by the conversation she heard above her, for her three years of marriage and two years of dating, her husband had never mentioned anything about any form of magic or a special ancestry.

"Fuck you!" Johnathan yelled and another round of scuffling could be heard, another unearthly shriek and a loud thump followed by a pained, furious growl. For a fraction of a moment there was silence. BOOM! It sounded as if the front wall of the house exploded. Madelines husband screamed just before a loud thump could be heard against the back wall.

"Thought you needed help, turns out I wassss right." A second earth rumbling voice said standing on the trap door above Madelines head. "Allowing a bottom feeding muggle to strip you of your tail, you should be killed for the embarrassment."

"Not my fault, the sword he wields is sharp enough to cut through stone. Caution brother." The first demon growled to the second as the second started towards the man struggling to his feet. With speed the demon thought the man incapable of he lunged to his feet swinging around the katana and taking the second demons head off with one clean slice and a couple of loud thumps as the demons head and body hit the floor. Another furious roar rang out and the first demon sprang into a long fight with much growling, grunting, yelling and cussing ending in another loud wet thump just above the trapdoor. As Madeline stared up into the floorboards, a sprinkle of hope in her heart, terror and agony began to replace that hope as blood started to seep between the boards.

"You fought well for a weak muggle, for your honor and nobility I shall leave you your sword." SHINK! The sword was suddenly thrust through the body on the floor above her and through the floor almost taking her nose off. With tears streaming down her face a loud whooshing sound could be heard as flames lit up the room above her before the demon grunted and dove through the shattered window in the front of the house.

"This is very sad." Sygra uttered as Rahkesh had allowed her to mentally eavesdrop through the woman's memories. "Amazing so much of the house still stands." She continued casually as Rahkesh bent to examine the grimy sword sticking out of the burnt corpse before him. "If you take the sword you should have to rescue the muggle, as it is the sword has been nearly impaling her for nearly two days. I don't sense any wielding enchantments amongst it's many, you should be safe to draw it."

With a sad sigh Rahkesh made up his mind. Stepping forward he grasped the Hilt and withdrew the sword, in an instant he could feel great power humming through the blade. This was no amateur weapon and he could tell this instantly, with a wave of his hand the muggle man's body slid a foot to the side and the trap door was ripped off it's hinges and flung over the remainder of the house. Looking down he could see the woman staring up into the brightness of day unable to see for her eyes were long adjusted to darkness, not that she'd be able to see him anyways as he was invisible. Stowing the sword in the disguised holster he had purchased for his soon to be staff he quickly glanced around to make sure there were no demons around before dropping his invisibility.

The woman gasped as he appeared. "Don't speak." He whispered. "It's not safe here, take my hand and I will take you someplace else." He continued reaching out his hand, as she grasped his hand a roar rang out a ways behind him and he activated his invisibility once more. Turning he saw three demons winging their way towards him and acting on instinct he apparated away but not just once, he kept apparating until the woman let go of his hand and began to vomit everywhere. Becoming visible once more and glancing around at the muggle village only about thirty kilometers away from his cottage he found this one to be going about it business as usual except for the two magical men glaring at him from in front of a nearby cafe.

"You should be safe here, I'm sorry about what happened but I'll make it easier for you." Rahkesh said pulling out his wand with the intention of obliviating her memories. Before he could however, a shot rang out and she dropped to the ground covered in blood with a small hole in the side of her forehead.

"Are you insane?!" One of the men from the cafe said, the other standing to his left also held a pistol but this one was pointing it at Rahkesh. "You'll lead them right to us!" The first man, a short and barrel chested individual with short brown hair and a red handlebar mustache shouted. Besides the fact that these two men seriously struggled to disguise their magic they were also very poorly dressed to fit in as muggles, something that the greater part of Europe struggled to understand. The second man who had yet to say a word held his pistol on Rahkesh completely unwavering, he was big and muscular but had little to no definition to it. He was bald and had a blond beard that went halfway down his chest.

For clothing the second man wore a black bathrobe with pink swim trunks underneath covered in patterns of yellow goldfish, the first man wore a kilt coupled with a very bright tye dyed shirt which Rahkesh decided would not help him blend in with anything. Though Rahkesh stood before the two men with a complete mask of calm he was actually anything but, he imagined his eyes to be glowing red for the rage he felt towards these men for he hadn't really known the woman, but he had certainly developed a pity for her and although he was going to obliviate her he was also going to work some bloodmagic into it so that he could still find the memories he was erasing in case he needed more information about the man she had married.

"I'm going to make the two of you wish you had met a demon today." Rahkesh whispered, the two men laughed until Rahkesh vanished. Using his invisibility he had caught the two men off guard and had apparated to the other side of them. Kicking the first man's legs out from underneath him Rahkesh dove aside, activated his offensive bloodmagics, thrust out his hand and crushed the second man's pistol around his hand drawing am embarrassing shriek of pain and a shot to ring out. Maybe out of sheer luck the first man reached out and grabbed Rahkeshs' ankle but Rahkesh didn't care, with a simple flick of his hand the man on the grounds head started spinning like a top until it popped off and went rolling away.

The second man turned to run but Rahkesh thrust his hand out again and grabbed the air around him, holding him in place. Sneaking up behind him as the man whimpered Rahkesh whispered in his ear. "You two were only alive because the demons don't want cowardly weaklings, there is no place for you in this world, their world or the new world." With the last word Rahkesh closed his fist, crushing the man into a bowling ball of oozing guts and blood. With a last glance at the poor dead woman Rahkesh set off towards the Potter family cottage that housed his bloodtree.

"It seems as though things are getting particularly bad then." Xassari replied to Rahkesh as Rahkesh set up his teleportation stone in the greenhouse next to his tree. Rahkesh had just finished getting him and Siraka up to date on the state of the world.

"We have seen some strange winged beasts flying around every now and then." Siraka informed drawing Rahkeshs' attention away from the bloodtree to stare at the snake lounging on the plastic lawn chair he had in this greenhouse.

"You have seen them?" Sygra asked sharply.

"Oh yes, flying by here and there. They have never glanced towards this place however, I do not believe they think anything special of it." Xassari continued. Glancing up briefly Rahkesh decided that with the state of the world this probably couldn't be helped and even if the demons did think this place special it was quite strongly warded against them. If a demon were to actually try to breach the property line the wards would activate and significantly obliterate any demon that got too close, at least for a while until they managed to break the wards for surely they would eventually be able to. Rahkesh had set up various communication devices that his pet snakes were aware of that if something like that were to happen they would notify him before retreating underground.

Being non-magical snakes the demons wouldn't sense them and wouldn't care about them, Rahkesh had had Sygra create an underground sanctuary for them in case of the worst, at least then they could happily live in royal underground quarters that stretched about five kilometers in any direction. Turning back to the table in front of him Rahkesh started to decide on the ingredients he would use for the staff, he had powdered Yeck fur that he would be covering all the other ingredients with before melding them with the wood.

He also had decided on a three foot neck feather from his Thunderbird form for this would channel an extravagant amount of electricity, a very large fang fragment from his basilisk form for fighting, poisonability and magical resistance. He had also decided on adding a few drops of phoenix tears for benevolent purposes, some tears and scales from Enerith as well as a scale from a demon in the hopes (instinct told him to add this) of it being more effective on demons. To mix all these together and bind them to the wood he was using his human blood, (fresh) tears, a leaf from the bloodtree itself and a few very valuable gemstones embedded in the wood.

Since creating his wand Rahkesh had practiced the magic required for drawing wood from a magical tree and had actually gotten pretty good at it, he felt that he had to or else risk killing his blood tree by drawing enough wood for a staff. He had also spent a lot of time drawing and storing blood to replace the wood that he took for he would need a fair amount and he truly meant well for this tree.

Caressing the bark of the tree Rahkesh told it his intentions before drawing his wand and setting the cans of blood in the soil next to him. "This wizard is so fascinating, I am so glad to have found him." Xassari whispered.

"Quiet, let him work." Sygra snapped sensing through their link that Rahkesh wanted to focus as much as possible. Closing his eyes he cast the spell on his tree and felt the wood split beneath his hand, carefully he levitated the six foot spear shaped staff out of the trunk and onto the table. Then quickly he cut his wrists with his bloodmagic knife and poured the blood cans mixed with fresh blood into the gap in the wood as well as into the soil at it's base. Though he had his eyes closed the tree glowed faintly as the scar in the wood accepted the blood and healed over in less than two minutes. The tree might not be fully sentient but it sure seemed like it at times, breathing a sigh of relief Rahkesh walked over to the table with the staff and began the hard part.

After readying all of the ingredients Rahkesh then levitated them all in a line and prepared himself for the spell to merge, this was immensely more difficult than his wand as there were many more ingredients involved and it was a much larger piece of wood. Breathing out Rahkesh gave everything to the magic before him and felt it all merge together flawlessly. Standing and grabbing his new magical staff from the table Rahkesh could feel a connection to his magic stronger than he could whilst doing a bloodmagic ritual. The six foot staff was marbled black and white with a series of bloodred rubies around the top which was all white wood while the bottom eight inches was pure black wood with a pleasant mix in-between.

Rahkesh stowed his wand away and twirled the staff around, as he did he did a bit of transfiguration to the bottom tip to add a speartip and found that the spear tip was made of basilisk fang and was dripping a bit of venom from the end, his venom. He almost wished the demons would find him for he felt unstoppable. Saying a quick thank you to his tree and packing his things away Rahkesh grabbed his familiar from the chair, bade farewell to his two non-magical snake friend's and set off back to Akren.

"We could have used that new stone you set up in the greenhouse to get back to your school." Sygra said after a couple of much despised apparations.

"Oh yes, I forgot about that..." Rahkesh whispered to his familiar as they walked back through the obliterated magical community at the bottom of the valley.

"You did not forget, you were eager for a fight. Funny how you did not seem to find one."

"I could always summon one to me."

"Unnecessary, all you would have to do is drop the concealments you carry on your magics. They would find you easily enough then." Sygra practically laughed.

"I'm so used to doing that that it takes a conscious effort not to." Rahkesh replied a little sheepish and with a sigh as they entered the valley. He was ready to perform the ritual to unblock his forms and then to solve this demon problem once and for all.

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Real sorry its taken so long for an update and that this isnt the longest of chapters I've posted. Writing, is in fact not as easy as it seems, especially picking up where someone else left off and trying to figure out where they were going as well as trying my hardest to balance all the elements. I want to thank you all for your reveiws and feedback and to apologize in advance for truly how long it will take to get myself to finish this. I think if I can do it and do a decent job (up to you as the readers) then I think I might go and write a real book. I'll see you all in the next chapter!

Please review! Your feedback helps me make the story better!