peryton

[shesepankh]

Summer vacation elapses, and sees their storefront doing one heck of a business in the Avalon with the help of their griffin employee. There is a suggestion box for new spells they should invent, some of which have to be long-term projects but others of which are converted into new product fairly promptly.

School starts up again. Darren and Bella are both skipping straight into twelfth grade. (Bella looked into just starting college early, but while she does technically have the sort of resume that can lead to that kind of thing, she can't exactly write an essay about how she saved the life of another person and this caused her to have Moral Character, let alone about how she started a small business - so skipping one grade it is.)

They apply to colleges. They both get into University of Washington and get sufficient scholarships to accommodate both going there.

Summer ensues again.

One afternoon, Bella is over at Darren's, and has fallen asleep - in purring fullform - across his lap on the couch.

Comments

[sundayfish]

"Friends who know about ink monsters?" asks Charlie.

[steppingup]

"They might. No guarantees, but it's - worth checking."

[sundayfish]

"Right. Keep in touch. I'll drop off the map soon as I can."

[steppingup]

"Mhm. Thanks. I'll call you if we find anything."

[sundayfish]

"Mm-hm."

Click.

[steppingup]

Click.

Well. Now he's got some other people to talk to.

[castmyown]

Darren - prepares. He tells himself that he will do Bella more good if he walks into whatever he's walking into full prepared for everything. So he prepares.

He makes a spell to find the ink monster. He makes several other spells that seem like they might hurt it - light obviously doesn't work, but maybe something involving stealing energy, or ripping it apart, or - various other things. He has lots of ideas, he wants to have as many as possible on him for the inevitable ink monster confrontation, because he is going to kill it no matter how unkillable it seems. It ate his girlfriend. It dies.

His sister can't really do much right now, but she prepares, too. Her preparation is less cerebral, and more - going out and buying knives. Lots of knives. She'd get a gun or two, but can't on such short notice, and not while she's still seventeen. She practices throwing the knives, takes to it pretty quickly, and deems that while not as good as guns, it's faster than magic and not utterly useless. She grabs a few combat scrolls, practices saying them in Spanish (because Darren's sure as hell too busy to help her with pronunciation, and Spanish is at least more straightforward in that vein) so she can use them, and then - waits. Practicing with her knives.

It's not a long wait, Darren turns out to be exceedingly efficient in this sort of crisis, and soon they're ready to go. They debate over bringing Mrs. Adams, and eventually decide against inviting her due to her lack of wings. They can make it to the necessary location faster than she can - so they tell their dad that they're leaving, and then they use Darren's spell to locate where to go, and they go.

The flight is several hours, but in terms of geographical placement it's relatively close by. Lucky. It wouldn't matter if it wasn't, though, the twins are pretty committed to this. They are going to kill at least one creature today. Possibly more.

Darren turns them both invisible, and then they start investigating when they're close to where his spell says to go.

[alicornucopia]

The place in question is a warehouse - it would be sort of like the kind of warehouse that might conceal an Avalon if it didn't stand far apart from its neighbors and have much more obvious security guards around the door.

[castmyown]

Oh, look, guards. How quaint.

Too bad they're not guarding this patch of wall, over here. Because Darren brought a few scrolls that let the twins just - phase through a wall. A muttered chant, a pair of held hands, and then they're both inside.

First priority: find Bella. Second priority: kill the hell out of the ink monster and whoever was responsible for sending it.

[alicornucopia]

The warehouse is divided inside with those fuzzy cubicle walls. They have phased in to a section with a coffee machine and some boxes and a filing cabinet (locked).

[castmyown]

Maybe at another time, Darren would be interested in what the filing cabinet has in it. He might find interest in it, later. Right now, though, nope. Bella. Ink monster. Bella.

[morethanimaginary]

Savannah leads the way, because she is the one with the knives. Let's go wandering, hmm? See what kind of things they find. Preferably sphinx shaped, they are looking for a sphinx.

(Personally, Savannah doesn't think Bella's alive. Of course she hopes she's wrong, but - well, she's not an optimist. Realistically, she's dead, and Savannah will be killing every single person in this warehouse. Darren can help.)

[shesepankh]

How is a loud familiar scream at convincing Savannah she's wrong?

"I DON'T KNOW - I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING - AAAAAAAAUNGH -"

[morethanimaginary]

Pretty damn good. She has to stop Darren from rushing off to go be heroic - she can feel him pull insistently at the hand gripped in hers towards the source of the scream. She pulls him back. They will go, but they're going to go carefully.

The people that took her want to keep Bella alive, if they want to know things from her. The twins can do more good if they get a good grasp of the situation instead of going in proverbial guns blazing. Savannah's aware of this. She hisses her explanation of it to Darren, under her breath.

"And then," she finishes, still in a murmur, "once we have a good position, we kill them all."

[castmyown]

"Fine," growls Darren, after a pause, sounding like he hates the word.

Back to investigating. Someone in charge, they need someone in charge. Someone to stop Bella's torture.

[shesepankh]

"TOLD YOU I DON'T AHHHHH FUCK STOP NOT - SINGAPORE!" comes Bella's wildly inventing scream. "THE SPHINXES ARE IN FUCKING SINGAPAAAAAAAAGH!"

Here is a whistling fellow in a business suit with a coffee mug approaching the coffee machine.

[morethanimaginary]

Why, hello, whistling fellow in a business suit. How important does he look? Like he's in charge of anything?

[shesepankh]

He seems pretty full of himself, is that a hint?

"I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING! WHAT DO YOU WANT?!"

[morethanimaginary]

Enough of one, yeah. Hand squeeze, gentle pull of held hands in the fellow's direction. Hey, Darren, think we should?

[castmyown]

Return of hand squeeze, then Darren starts murmuring something under his breath, a chant for the correct spell. That's a yes, they should.

The spell's so no one will hear the fellow scream.

[morethanimaginary]

Because oh is he going to scream.

Savannah releases their held hand, waits for Darren to be finished with the spell, and then, after it goes - the fellow is tackled to the ground.

"Hello," purrs Savannah, into his ear. "We have some questions for you."

She's invisible, but he gets to feel the knife, at his neck. Look at it, so sharp. So insistently at his neck.

[shesepankh]

The fellow is very surprised.

"Wh-what? Who's...?"

Meanwhile: loud jagged sobbing.

[morethanimaginary]

"The lovely lady with a sharp, pointy knife and a silencing spell, that's who. Tell me, who's in charge of this? Who thought it was a good idea to snatch up the sphinx?"

[castmyown]

(Darren is so glad that a breaking heart isn't audible. He wishes there was a way to tell Bella to hold on, that they'll be there, they'll be there soon. Just hold on, Bella.)

[shesepankh]

Bella is unrelieved in her ignorance. "Oh god n-AAAAAAAAAAH -" panicked gasping, "AAAAAAAAAAAAH SADISTIC FUCK -"

"M- no, I can't -" the gentleman in the suit says, struggling, trying to feel around for the invisible knife and pull it away from his neck.