Clanverse/Final Fantasy VII xover. So far off in the future it's ridiculous and will never ever be written...

“I will not step aside.”

Angeal found he didn’t know how to deal with this woman. With all of his enhancements and materia, he should have been able to destroy her defences and move on swiftly, but she was causing him a delay he could ill afford and she looked like she wasn’t going to slow down any time soon, not even in the face of the Buster Sword.

“I warn you, SOLDIER,” The woman continued, amethyst eyes flashing angrily, “I will protect the children with everything I have, and I am an heir, I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve.”

“Heir?” Angeal asked, noting that the woman wasn’t of Wutai cast so she couldn’t be talking about being Godo’s heir. If Angeal remembered the mission file properly, that was the lot of a little girl named Yuffie, and hoping to get more information out of her, since she was clearly not on Shinra’s side either.

“I am Hexic Mutou-Potter, heir to the Shadow Throne of Leorouge.” The woman, who, Angeal realised on closer inspection, was in her late teens, stated in a matter of fact way, flicking her multicoloured hair over her shoulders. “I am also the oldest survivor of the destruction of the D.E.V. Atlas, and as such responsible for the safety of the children until our family comes for us. Who are you SOLDIER?”

“It is a pleasure to meet you Lady Mutou-Potter.” Angeal nodded, figuring politeness would go a long way, considering that she wasn’t from Wutai and as such wasn’t an official enemy of Shinra, though that would change if she stayed on the side of Wutai during this war. “I am Angeal Hewley, SOLDIER First Class. If you would allow me to pass, I swear I will not bring any harm to your charges.”

The teenager considered him carefully, surprise flickering in her eyes. Angeal half expected that Wutai had told her tales of Shinra’s callousness and, while he was fully aware that Genesis might have been less willing to explain himself, he was willing to at least try to talk to this teenager.

“You are not what I expected.” She said slowly, “After my encounter with your red coated friend, I didn’t expect a SOLDIER to want to talk.”

Angeal winced. “You’ve met Genesis?”

Hexic flinched slightly in memory. That was answer enough for Angeal.

Nuzlocke End and Start

Lilith wasn’t sorry she was retiring. She really wasn’t.

She’d miss the travelling but she wouldn’t miss losing friend after friend during the journey and after three league victories, she had earned herself a name and a reputation, one that had attracted the attention of Professor Cedric Juniper, who had asked her to move to the recently built town of Nuvema in Unova to help him raise the Pokémon for those who wanted to start their own Pokémon journeys.

His call had come in at the perfect moment too. She hadn’t long defeated Cynthia, earning herself the money that would allow her to set up her own Day Care Centre. Land in Unova was cheap and with her winnings from the three leagues she’d defeated, Kanto, Johto and Sinnoh, she could afford at least a couple of acres and still afford to set herself up comfortably.

She liked this plan.

Mostly because she could keep her Pokémon, as long as they stayed within her boundaries, she could do something she was good at, raising Pokémon, and she didn’t have to run the risk everyday of losing her best friends.

She wondered when she’d become so lonely that her Pokémon, especially her very first Pokémon, her Charizard, Firestorm, had become closer to her than her own family had become, she knew that it had been long before Kanto’s Elite had fallen before the power of Firestorm and Permafrost, but she didn’t know when.

It didn’t matter now. She had her victories, though they were pyrrhic at best, with each league costing her more and more of her friends and she had her surviving friends, Firestorm, her very first Pokémon among them, she had her money, money she hadn’t had when her mother had kicked her out of the door at age ten with no warning, and she had a future ahead of her that didn’t involve pitting her creatures against another Trainer’s for what some would call ‘sport’.

Alright she was raising other people’s for the same reason, but the league was changing, shifting. Already Pokémon Training was more popular than it had been  when she’d left home originally and been forced down the path of a Pokémon Trainer, which was the way that more Trainers than they’d like to admit had started their journey.

Oh she’d have to have her team checked all over again, but she was certain that with a Professor speeding the process along it wouldn’t be too long before she and her squad could settle down in their new home...

LINE_RECOGNITION_HAS_GONE_AGAIN

It was perfect.

Her ranch, Green Ranch, was perfect. From its three acres of land, some of which was wooded to its white walled, thatched roof cottage it was perfect.

It was exactly how she had dreamed it would be and her Pokémon loved it, from her lake, to her forests, to her meadows upon meadows.

It was perfect...

It had cost a pretty penny too, but she had been able to afford it and get herself started up, though part of her funds for food were coming from the wages that she was earning breeding Pokémon for the Professor. Tepig, Snivy and Oshawatt, fire, grass and water, not so very different from Kanto and yet unlike Kanto in every way.

She was safe here. Safe from Team Rocket, safe from prats like Dean and Sam, safe from ever having to save the world again.

Her life was hers again. To do with what she pleased. She was one of those rare ones, the ones who didn’t fail their journey, who did something spectacular and then settled down and went into something else entirely, fully paid for by their years on the Pokémon Circuit.

And what was better was that she didn’t have to speak to her mother again if she didn’t want to and she really really didn’t want to. Nor did she want to speak to Professor Oak, who had both assisted in her expulsion from her home and outed her when she’d been hiding from Team Rocket in Johto.

Moving to Unova meant she’d never have to do either of these things again if she didn’t want to.

She was safe, she was free, she was home.

Home. It was a wonderful word. A little pre-emptive considering that there was a little work that needed to be done on the cottage before it was really ready to be inhabited, but it was hers and hers alone and while she was waiting for her home to be finished, Professor Juniper had allowed her to move into the room his daughter used when she was home from University.

Just one more year and there would be two professors in the Juniper family...

By the time Aurea came home for the holidays Lilith would be out of her room and into the ranch.

Just a couple more weeks...

LINE_RECOGNITION_HAS_GONE_AGAIN

It had been years since she’d moved to Unova and this was either going to prove the best mistake or the worst mistake of her life, but she’d fallen head over heels for a Trainer who had been staying in her spare room and studying under Professor Aurea Juniper.

Cedric had left Nuvema over a year ago, and had tried to convince her to come with him, certain that a Trainer as skilled as she would love a chance to see new places and new Pokémon, and she had almost gone. Left the Day Care in the care of Professor Iris and just left.

Now she was glad she hadn’t... or rather she had been until the test results had shown themselves. Now she didn’t know what she thought or felt...

Not that she wasn’t used to having little ones running around, but those were Pokémon. She knew how to deal with Pokémon. She knew what they needed in their food, how to handle them, how to teach them...

A human baby was a completely different matter.

She had no idea how she was going to run the centre when she got too heavy to work. Technically it was already dangerous for her to push herself too hard and her morning schedule was being completely ruined by the sickness that struck with frustrating regularity...

It was more terrifying than going up against the Elite Four. That she knew how to do...

He’d promised. Promised that he would stay by her side and help her...

She would need the help...

LINE_RECOGNITION_HAS_GONE_AGAIN

She’d thought her life was perfect before, back when she’d been thirteen years old.

Now, at eighteen she knew what perfection was. It was a beautiful blue eyed baby girl with thick dark  hair already coming through.

Her little girl, her precious baby, her darling Mara-Rei...

They didn’t need the brute that had left town three months ago with no warning and left her in the lurch. With Professor Juniper’s help they would be fine.

She hoped...

LINE_RECOGNITION_HAS_GONE_AGAIN

She had hoped it wouldn’t come to this but Mara’s tenth birthday had arrived all too quickly and unlike her mother, she wanted to leave home and train Pokémon.

Her little girl wanted to go out and travel and see the world, just as her mother had at her age. Mara hadn’t seen the hardships of Pokémon training, only heard the stories of her Tri-Champion mother’s victories from fans and passing Trainers and seen child after child leave town with a Pokémon raised on her mother’s ranch.

They’d fought over this many times. Lilith didn’t want her daughter leaving home so early. She had been lucky. Her journey, while it hadn’t been easy, had been better than most. Hundreds of Trainers left home a year but only one or two ever made it all the way to the Elite Four and there was almost never anyone who defeated the Champion to win it all.

Mara didn’t see why, if her mother had left home at ten years old, she couldn’t do the same.

Eventually they’d come to a compromise.

Mara had to finish school but in exchange Lilith would provide her daughter and her two friends with Pokémon without squabbling the day after her daughter’s final exam.   

Considering Cheren and Bianca, it wasn’t the safest deal Lilith had ever made, but it could have been much much worse and it meant that Mara wouldn’t leave home until she was sixteen, which would be both an advantage and a disadvantage.

Lilith felt safer knowing that while her daughter may have resented the fact that her mother had prevented her leaving so young, her daughter had a couple more years in which to learn how to cook things that weren’t freeze dried and would be old enough to look after herself.

Hopefully by then she would have the common sense not to get involved in troubles like the ones her mother had gotten into when she was young...

LINE_RECOGNITION_HAS_GONE_AGAIN

Harry Tate: Year 3 Train Mishaps

Harry James Tate had been asleep since they had left King’s Cross station early this morning, lulled to sleep by the combination of the movement of the train and the music that had been playing on his portable CD player, so when the train stopped and his music cut out, the thirteen year old started awake and looked around, bleary eyed, at his friends, Megan and Hermione, taking one of the buds out of his ears.

“We’ve stopped.” Hermione told him with a small frown, putting her book down and watching the young martial artist take the other bud out of his ear and look out the window, “But we’re still hours from Hogwarts.”

“My music stopped too.” Harry muttered, “I put fresh batteries in, it shouldn’t have cut out for another,” He looked at his watch, “Two hours.”

The lights cut out and the temperature suddenly dropped to around freezing.

Harry called up a ball of ki, the white energy he’d been taught to harness by his mother, if only to stop him from trying to learn it on his own, which lit the room and cast startling shadows.

“Put that out.”

Harry and Hermione turned to look at the man whose carriage they had been riding in. Professor Lupin, who had been further asleep then Harry just moments ago, had gotten to his feet and moved towards the door, waving at Harry to put out the light.

Harry was about to reabsorb his ki when a hooded creature appeared in the doorway, breath rattling, floating inches above the ground, resembling nothing more then a ragged black robe that floated along menacingly.

Instead, Harry launched the ki at the creature, who had turned towards the occupants of his carriage. The ball of energy caused the creature to explode into black streamers of goo upon contact.

The goo stuck to everything to it touched, including Harry’s jacket, which he quickly pulled off, before slowly vanishing, cleaned up by the charms in place to stop the train getting messy when students ran rampant in it.

“Soul Stealer!” Hermione hissed, already getting to her feet, shrugging off the remnants of the bad memories brought to the fore by the presence of the creature and watching her friend, knowing that his mother had done everything she could to protect him from the worst of the effects that they had on people’s minds, but knowing that Harry was still susceptible.

“I know.” Harry said, moving towards the door. “Wait here.”

“Don’t move from this carriage,” Lupin, who had reached the door moments before Harry, trying to work out what, exactly Harry had done to the Dementor, blanched slightly as a pair of Dementors floated down the hall towards the compartment from both directions.

“Professor…” Harry hissed, frustrated. He could handle a couple more Soul Stealers, but not if Lupin insisted in getting in the way.

“Expecto Patronum.” Lupin waved his wand and a burst of silvery light, which seemed to take the shape of some animal, though Harry couldn’t quite see what it was, chased the two Dementors away.

The heat was back quickly once the Dementors were gone, but the teen wasn’t paying attention. He was too busy being annoyed at Lupin. “I could have handled those Soul Stealers.” Harry growled at the Professor, who turned to consider him carefully.

“I don’t doubt you could have.” Lupin nodded, watching Harry warily. “But those Dementors were sent by the Ministry of Magic to search for Sirius Black. Destroying one of them is bad enough, but destroying three would get you into trouble. What, exactly, did you do?”

“They’re from Azkaban?” Hermione questioned, looking from Lupin to her friend, fully aware of the deal Harry’s mother had made with the Ministry to avoid clashes between the Ministry’s Aurors and Eva Tate’s little band of misfits.

“They weren’t on Azkaban, this doesn’t void my mother’s contract.” Harry waved it off, though he was certain Hermione would probably contact Eva to check.

“What did you do?” Lupin demanded of the black haired teen, whose mood had been broken by his friend’s interruption and was now fiddling with the MP3 player.

“Well, you see Professor, it’s a long story.” Harry said, not really wanting to tell it, but horribly aware that Lupin was going to get it out of him anyway.

“I will go and speak with the driver and then I will require a full story out of you, Mr…”

“Tate, Harry James Tate.” Harry replied.

“Mr Tate.” Lupin nodded. “With a little luck, we might be able to prevent you getting into trouble.”

“I doubt it.” Hermione sniggered once the Professor had left the compartment. “Since when can anyone keep you out of trouble?”

“He wouldn’t be the first to try.” Harry nodded, amusement sinking in, past the frustration.

Lupin was gone only ten minutes and the train was moving again before he got back to them. Harry, who was giving his cat a treat through the bars on the cat carrier, looked up to find the Professor watching him again. “Yes Professor?”

“The full story please, from the beginning…”

“Well, you see Professor, it all begins with my mother…”

Harry Tate: Harry Potter/Original Story crossover

Eva Tate had been out since five o’clock yesterday morning on an errand for her boss, and had only gotten in at seven o’clock this morning, so when the phone rang at midday, it was her girlfriend, Jin, who had taken the call.

“Eva, love.” The Asian woman with long black hair and startling green eyes shook her partner gently, “Social services are on the phone.”

Eva forced herself out of a well deserved and much needed sleep to nod and pull herself out of bed, following her girlfriend down the corridor and picking up the phone. “Eva Tate speaking.”

“Lindsey Winters, I’m with Social Services.”

“Good,” Eva checked the clock quickly, “Afternoon Ms Winters, does this mean the paperwork’s gone through?”

“Indeed.” Lindsey sounded cheerful, too cheerful for Eva’s liking considering the lack of sleep, but she pushed the irritation aside. “In fact we have a child we need to find a home for as soon as possible.”

“Do tell.” Eva perked up, having been waiting for this good news for months and surprised that they’d been picked out for a child so quickly.

“The boy’s eighteen months old. His name’s Harry Potter.” Lindsey sounded like she was reading off of a sheet, “It might only be a temporary placement, it sounds like he just wandered away from home and once we find out who his parents are they’ll have first rights to the child.”

“I understand.” Eva nodded, “I’d be happy to take Harry in for as long as necessary.”

“Good, we’ll drop him off at two.”

“Thank you, I’ll be ready for him. Is there anything extra we should know?”

“We’ll do all necessary checks before we leave to make sure you’re suitable, but you shouldn’t have a problem.”

“I understand.” Eva nodded, though she couldn’t be seen by the woman on the other end of the phone. “Thank you for choosing us.”

“You’re welcome Miss Tate. Provided everything goes well, Harry should be staying with you for a couple of days.”

“I understand.” She repeated.

“I’ll see you at two.” Lindsey put the phone down.

“Eva?” Jin asked, confused.

“The spare room’s free, isn’t it?” Eva asked, pausing on the stairs.

“It’s as neat and tidy as possible.” Jin nodded, “Why? Is it finally happening?” She asked, excited.

“It’s only for a few days.” Eva warned, “Until they find his parents.”

“I don’t care. It could be for a few hours for all I care. If they’ve picked us we’re likely to get picked again if we do a good job!” She danced down the hallway and into the living room.

Eva was about to head up to double check the spare room, wondering if they should get a crib or an alarm or something if the boy was likely to wander, when a bright light blazed out of the living room door, forcing Eva to shield her eyes until it had gone down.

“Eva!” Jin sounded rather annoyed. “You have a visitor.”

She’d kind of guessed, considering all of Jin’s ‘visitors’ appeared at the door or without a flashy light show and their friends, those who lived here at least, had their own house keys.

Eva entered the living room to find a tall, brunette woman in a gorgeous white dress waiting for her. “My Lady.” Eva bowed to her patron, frustrated. Why now?

“Straighten Eva, I must speak with you at length.”

“My Lady, please do not presume me rude, but you have come at a rather inopportune moment.” Eva said as she directed the woman towards the sofa and looked at Jin, who nodded and darted off to make some tea. “You see Social Services have...”

“I know.” The woman said, settling demurely on the sofa and waved Eva silent. “That is why I am here.”

Eva nodded. This woman was the embodiment of fate, the one who dictated how the paths of each individual ran. This woman was also the reason she was alive right now.

Eva had been friends with Jin for years, and, back when they’d been eleven or twelve, Jin had fought with an enemy called Korina, an evil sorceress who was devouring the souls of innocent people in order to prolong her life and had been doing so for around five hundred years. Back then they’d believed the prophecy that had announced that Jin was the only one who could beat her.

When they’d defeated her, through a combination of skill and sheer dumb luck, they’d believed it was over.

So when Korina had returned four years later, they had been unprepared, surviving the first assault against them only because the Soul Stealers had focused their attack on Jin, giving Eva a chance to use what she’d learnt since their last encounter, which, in turn gave Nate, Lucy and Orion time to arrive and help.

They’d found and defeated Korina in battle again, but this time it had been at a price.

Before Jin’s summons could defeat Korina and force her out of the Soul Stealer who she had possessed, in order to seal her away, Korina had struck a lucky blow, sending Jin’s fire bird crashing into a pillar.

Eva who had been in the direct path of the bird, had had to dive out of the way, and had been unable to get to her feet quick enough to get out of the way of a spell cast by Korina, which, as far as everyone else involved in the fight had been concerned, had killed her.

It had been then that this woman, Madam Fate or Lady Destiny, she went by either name and was known by many more, had stepped in.

She had been following Eva’s story closely, especially since Eva’s story was caught up in the story of Fate’s favourites and the girl was studying under a Master of Wu Shu, who had trained up on Xuan Wu’s Mountain, and when it had seemed that Eva was about to be killed, Destiny had plucked her from the battle field, taken her to the world of the Gods and given her a choice.

Become Raised and given a chance to go back and fight alongside her, by that point, girlfriend once again, in exchange for doing a few jobs for Madam Fate, up to and including dealing with Dark Lords, Sorcerers and Mages at the start of their career, so that Fate wouldn’t have to go through the rigmarole of fighting with a world that no longer wanted to believe in Gods and magic to get things done properly, or die.

Those were the choices and Eva had, quite understandably, chosen life, not quite understanding until much, much later what choosing life as a Raised Human would mean, and when she returned to the human world three months later, it was to the shock and awe of her friends, who had believed her dead.

It wasn’t until Eva, as was the norm for teenagers who gained a lot of power, had made the mistake of getting cocky on one of the jobs that Madam Fate had sent her on and she’d gotten herself killed, that she truly realised what being Raised meant.

It meant that while she could be killed, she would return to the human world after a certain amount of time. It could be anything from three months to a stupid amount of years, but she would return. She wouldn’t stay dead.

She also wouldn’t age.

She had tried to pull away from Jin when she’d found that out, unsure whether she could cope with watching her girlfriend grow old and die, and had even asked Madam Fate to Raise Jin like she had Raised Eva.

But even if Fate had been willing, Jin would have turned it down.

She had quite enough on her plate with Korina, without adding any other problems.

And so Eva had stayed with her, and had been about to ask Jin the big question when Jin had made a suggestion.

They couldn’t have children together, so what if they adopted?

Eva, having the most steady income, had made the application, and now it seemed like it was going to come to fruition, but why was Destiny here now? And what did she want with the child that was only going to be staying with them a few days?

Sneak Peek of a Distant Future: Ennead: Battle of the Gods

When the Millennium Necklace had revealed to her that the Pharaoh had been female she had found it incredibly difficult to believe. Every story she had been told, every legend passed down through her family’s history had spoken of the nameless Pharaoh who had given hislife to save the world, surrendering everything he had and any chance of making the journey through the afterlife to do so, and who would be reborn when the Shadows once again launched an assault against the world.

Nothing had ever been said of he being a she.

And yet here she was, in all her glory, the nameless Pharaoh, the Queen of Games, here in the museum, looking for answers.

And Isizu was torn as to what to do. She’d seen the future, she’d seen herself telling the Pharaoh and her consort everything they needed to know, that was what she had to do to in order to have even the slightest chance of saving her brother. 

That possibility was remote though, she’d seen the future after all. She knew how everything was going to unfold. The Pharaoh would be told everything she needed to know in order to force her onto the necessary path and then she would compete in Battle City, believing she was on the route to getting her memories back, never knowing that she was on the path to her own destruction.

If Isizu was truly loyal to her Queen, as she should have been, she would have warned her about the danger, told her about the mental and physical torture that was to come, how Marik, Isizu’s patricidal brother, would cause both the spirit of the nameless Pharaoh and the vessel, Mutou Yugi, agony so great that they would wish for death long before it came, but she couldn’t, not while there was a chance that she would get one last chance to save her brother, even if...

She knew the future. By the time he moved onto the Pharaoh, Marik would be guilty of sororicide too.

She was supposed to have faith in the nameless Pharaoh, faith that he would be able to defeat evil and restore balance to the world, but he had turned out to be a she and now Isizu wondered how many of the tales that had been passed down through her family for the last five millennia were actually true.

Was it really possible that this tiny girl was the Pharaoh of the legends? The one who had protected Egypt from so many dangers? The one who had battled Anubis and won? The only one who could control all three Egyptian God monsters at the same time?

If the Pharaoh had looked more like her consort, Isizu would have been happier. A tall, powerful looking male Pharaoh would have been much more reassuring than the short, tiny framed girl that now stood before the tablet, absorbing every detail of it...

Even without the visions she’d had from five thousand years ago, when the Pharaoh had stood before the tablet, she’d sensed the magic that had been loosed and recognised the girl in front of her as the same woman from her visions.

“Oneesan?” The Pharaoh’s consort asked, surprising Isizu, as she’d ‘seen’ the blonde kissing the Pharaoh, and causing her to wonder if it hadn’t been the nameless Pharaoh she’d seen him kissing, but the young vessel, “Are you alright?”

Sneak Peek: Ennead: Season Zero: Chapter 24

Yugi was still trying to work out how to phrase her letter when she got home from school. She had been attempting to think about it all day, but returning the stolen games hadn’t helped her steadily increasing fame amongst the student population. Instead she was more popular than she had been this morning.

“Oooh, post!” Jou grinned, pouncing on a letter addressed to him and tossing Yugi a couple of envelopes. Yugi was about to open her post when Jou let out a delighted whoop and spun her around the shop until she was dizzy.

“Jonouchi, I would appreciate it if you didn’t make Yugi sick.” Ojiisan scolded, his tone only half serious as Jou swiftly let go and Yugi stumbled slightly before leaning on one of the glass cases.

“Sorry, but you remember that application I put in for ‘Get the Million?’ You know, that game show that’s really popular right now?” He asked, a huge smile on his face.

“How could we forget?” Ojiisan asked, “You coloured it in with every colouring pencil we own and a few I didn’t think we did.”

“Well I’m on. They’re letting me play!” Jou crowed, “I’m recording at the end of the week!”

“That’s great.” Yugi smiled at him, still dizzy but pleased for her friend and able to sense Oneesan’s pleasure at Jou’s good luck too.

As Jou started babbling about everything he was going to do with the money when he got it, Yugi started restocking the shelves. The store looked like it had been busy over the course of the day. Monster Fighter hadn’t been the only thing to fly off the shelves by the looks of it.

In fact it continued to be busy right up until about five minutes before closing when one of the other teens in their year, one Yugi had returned a game to earlier in the day, entered the shop looking nervous.

“Imori-kun? Right?” Yugi asked, curious about the package in his hands.

“Ye...yeah.” Imori nodded, “You’re Mutou-kun?”

“That’s right.” Yugi encouraged, “What’ve you got there?”

“I wanted to...” He put the package on the counter, letting them all look at it. It looked like a jar and a box, tied with string and with a piece of paper with kanji attached, “Well you know games, right?” Yugi nodded, “I was hoping you could tell me what this is and maybe we could have a gam...”

“No.” Ojiisan’s firm and unyielding denial confused Yugi, who turned to her grandfather to find that he was glowering at the package.

“Ojiisan?” Jou asked, confused.

“I’ve heard about this.” Ojiisan explained, “This is an ancient game called Dragon Cards and you must not break this seal!”

“Why?” Yugi asked, confused considering that he didn’t discourage Oneesan’s game and they were certainly dangerous.

“Because they were created by a Taoist master as a test for his students. Their final test. They use the energies of the heaven and nature. The cards are currently in balance, the dark energies of the cards are balanced by the light energies of the seal.”

Yugi blinked, wondering if her relationship with Oneesan was something similar.

“If this seal gets broken, it will create a warped power and disaster would fall upon you and anyone around you.” Ojiisan warned, “In fact I’ve heard rumour that these Dragon Cards once ruined countries. You must never, ever break this seal.”

Clanverse: Dimensional Difficulties: Part 2

“Go have fun.” Yugi’s words echoed in Yami’s head as he sprinted for the Game Shop, having bolted from the cinema the moment that he’d suddenly been assaulted by an intense wave of fear over the link, “I’ll be safe here. After all this is our house. Remember?”

He hadn’t really wanted to leave Yugi in the house alone, not after Voldemort had almost destroyed Yugi’s soul during their first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but his hikari had convinced him to go with the others to the cinema, stating that there wasn’t much point him going considering that he was still sleeping over half the time and would, most likely, sleep through the entire film, but that was no reason for Yami not to spend time with their friends.

Now the Pharaoh wished he’d listened to his instincts and stayed at home with his still recovering hikari. If it had just been a burst of fear, Yami would have been panicked but not this badly however the link was gone, dead, Yami couldn’t even make the leap from his soul room to Yugi’s and he feared...

No. Yugi couldn’t be...

He let himself in and rushed up the stairs to find the front room in a mess, the Millennium Puzzle in pieces and no Yugi.

“The hell...?” Yami wheeled around, magic already summoned, only to find Joey had come up the stairs behind him.

The Pharaoh left Joey to examine the living room and searched the house high and low, only to find Yugi was nowhere to be found.

“Yami.” Joey’s voice carried easily in the silence of the empty house, “You need to see this.”

Yami shot back into the living room to find Tristan and Tea had followed him too. He felt a twinge of guilt for pulling all of them away from their expensive movie, then it was gone, drowned by his fear for his hikari. “What?”

Joey handed him a letter. One addressed to ‘Mutou Yugi, King of Games’ and Yami’s scowl deepened as he ripped it open, having had Yugi’s permission to open his post months ago.

He read it. Then he reread it. Then he dissolved in several colourful curses and then he handed it over to Tristan, who had held his hand out for it, before glowering at thin air and picking up the Puzzle pieces.

“Mutou Yugi, we have your brother.” Tristan read aloud, his face darkening as he spoke, “The one you’ve been hiding from the world for so long. We left you the Puzzle. There’s no point us having it until you’re defeated after all, however if you wish to see Yami again you’ll come to the Dimension Software tournament in two days time and duel us for both the Millennium Puzzle and your title and lose or else you’ll never see him again. Call the police or refuse to come and we’ll kill your brother. See you in two days...”

“Shit.” Joey kicked the over turned table. “Wait... they have Yami?” Joey blinked at the Pharaoh who had an oddly feral look in his eyes.

“They think they have me.” Yami spat out as he picked up the last piece, rage obvious, “They thought they’d taken me in order to get to him. Not vice versa.”

“Can you sense where he is?” Tea asked, concern obvious.

“No.” Yami shook his head as he started pacing the room, hands only fiddling with the Puzzle for a moment. When another piece fell out, he put it carefully on the side, “Not with the Puzzle in pieces or I’d hunt down whoever took him and deal with them now.”

“So what? We’ve got no choice but to do as they say?” Joey didn’t like that idea.

“For now.” Yami snarled, already beginning to piece together a plan even as the others panicked.

“We should tell Kari and Ombre.” Tea worried, “They might have some ideas.”

“If the bad guys haven’t gone after Kari too.” Tristan scowled, “She’s got a Item as well.”

“I’ll ring her now.” Tea pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialled Kari. All the while wondering if it said something that they were so used to kidnappings that their first response wasn’t to call the police, but to check on the other members of their party. The response she got wasn’t reassuring.

“Hi, you’ve reached Kari’s phone, I’m sorry I can’t be reached at the moment, but if you’d like to leave your name and telephone number I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Please speak clearly after the long tone, thank you. BEEP.”

Clanverse: Dimensional Difficuties: Part 1

BETWEEN PHILOSOPHER'S STONE AND CHAMBER OF SECRETS

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He’d specifically waited until nightfall to slip in through the open window of the upstairs flat above the Kame Game Shop and it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light inside.  It wasn’t hard to spot his target though, not when the spiky haired teenager was sprawled on the sofa, fast asleep and illuminated by the television, safe in the supposed knowledge that he was perfectly safe in his own home.

He silently stalked over to the teen, frowning slightly at the sight of the Millennium Puzzle hanging around the target’s neck considering that it belonged to the teen he’d seen leave the game shop a couple of hours ago, surrounded by his friends, but didn’t think much of it, after all, if the King of Games had chosen to surrender his deck to his sibling, then it was possible that he had left the Puzzle in the care of his sibling temporarily too.

He reached for the catch of the chain carefully, but the moment his fingers brushed the metal the teenager started awake and attempted to bolt away, only prevented from doing so because he seized the kid’s hair and pulled him to the ground, wincing slightly at the loss of surprise and the pained cry the kid had loosed as his head slammed into the table, stunning the teen long enough for him to pin the brat to the ground.

The teen expelled a lot of air in a pained cry as his assailant drove a knee into his stomach and before he could take any back in one hand was at his throat and pushing down hard as the man straddled the teen, pinning him down while the other hand took out a piece of the Puzzle and tossed it aside before pulling a vial from a pouch at his belt and uncorking it, sneering at the teen as he did so.

The brat’s mouth shut quickly though it didn’t help as the hand at his throat shifted so that it was pinching his nostrils shut. Without any way to take in air, it didn’t take long for the teen to open his mouth to gasp for breath and the contents of the vial were poured in before the brat could do anything.

The kid tried to spit the liquid out, but he was too slow as the hand pinching his nose shifted to cover his mouth too and the other pushed up on his jaw, preventing him from opening his mouth.

“Swallow it, brat.” The man sniggered as the kid tried to fight his own body’s instincts to swallow so he could breathe and pull his attacker’s hands away, “You’ll get air afterwards...”

The brat wouldn’t stop fighting, struggling against his captor even as his body betrayed him and swallowed the liquid. The man’s hands moved away from the teen’s face, an amused look on his features at the thought that the kid had thought a five foot one teen who was built like a stick insect could have possibly hoped to move the weight of the six foot three, heavily set man.

The man felt the teen go limp under him and watched as the teen’s eyes began to roll back in his head. The drug was working... He started to pick himself up. The kid was no threat now...

Then something unexpected happened.

In an incredibly fast motion that took him by surprise, the brat seized something that had rolled under the table when he had fallen, something long and golden and...

He didn’t quite catch what the kid whispered when he pointed the wand at him, but it loosed a blast of air that forced him off of the teenager and slammed him into a wall.

Immediately the teenager rolled onto his hands and knees and scrambled to his feet, staggering towards the Puzzle piece, but before he could reach it a second attacker’s voice spoke and the kid’s wand went flying into the hands of the second person.

Then the first was on the teen, having knocked aside the table in his rush to get to the teen and slamming the brat’s head against the wall hard, stunning the teen long enough to be able to lift the chain over his head and toss the rest of the Puzzle aside, the impact with the ground causing it to lose even more pieces.

Before the kid could pull himself together the second attacker spoke again and the brat’s world went dark as the spell hit his face and his eyes dulled from a bright amethyst to a pale lilac.

This, if anything, caused the teen to struggle harder, and he would have escaped the first assailant’s grip entirely, except for the fact that the man’s hands shifted, seizing the kid’s throat and squeezing tightly.

“L...Let... me... go...” The teen gasped as he struggled, grabbing both of the man’s wrists and trying to pull his hands away so he could breathe again, only for the man’s grip to tighten on his neck to the point where only a strange whistling sound could escape the teen’s throat.

The second attacker pulled the first off of the teen, scolding him for almost killing the bait, but the first had done his job well enough as the brat collapsed to the ground, coughing, trying to take in air, the adrenaline rush fading under the effects of the liquid he’d been force fed. Before too much longer the teen was too weak to escape.

The kid struggled weakly for a moment as his wrists were bound tightly behind his back, then with a final shudder he went completely limp, unconscious.

The two assailants escaped the way they’d come, taking their prisoner with them and leaving behind a note addressed to the King of Games.  

Phineas and Ferb: Across the Second Dimension WHATIF

“Now I have you!”

Perry wheeled around at the triumphant cry unleashed by the alternate dimension version of his incompetent nemesis.

Phineas was in trouble. The evil Doctor Doofenshmirtz had gotten a hold of the boy’s baseball launcher and had it aimed at Perry’s owner, backing the boy up towards the edge of the Other Dimensioninator’s platform.

The playpus didn’t know what to do. If he leapt up there, the Doctor might fire and Phineas would go tumbling over the edge. The secret agent had been up there. He knew full damn well that the Other Dimensioninator’s platform hovered over the edge of the Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated skyscraper. If Phineas fell, there was no way he could get to the boy in time to save his life.

“All you’ve accomplished here is that I’m going to have a new Platyborg, maybe a new Boyborg too.” The evil doctor was crowing as Phineas got too close to the edge for Perry’s liking.

Why oh why had he brought the boy up here? He could have handled it alone, the secret agent lied to himself as he tried to work out a way to save his beloved friend and owner.

Then it hit him as his tail brushed against the baseball bat Phineas had happened to leave there when they’d been there hours ago, before they’d been trapped in the second dimension. If he could get that baseball bat to Phineas, the boy could hit the baseball away and defend himself.

Perry only had a split second to act as the doctor went to fire. He moved, trying to knock the bat flying, only to get hit by a blast from Perry the Platyborg’s laser cannon that sent him flying into the Other Dimensioninator, breaking the control panel and sending the machine out of control.

The second dimension Doofenshmirtz had already hit the trigger on the baseball launcher before he had actually reacted to the flying platypus, and the high speed baseball hit Phineas in the stomach, causing the boy to let out a pained yelp and stumble back, before letting out a second, much more terrified cry as he stumbled right over the edge.

Perry chittered in fear as he launched himself past the evil Doof, ignoring the complaints of how and why and ‘this isn’t possible’ that were erupting from the man as the machine started to explode, in favour of trying to save his owner. He leapt off of the platform, following his owner down, figuring that if he could get close enough his grappling hook might save them both.  

What he saw next shocked him. Ferb, who had been climbing up the side of the building using a pair of plungers, had grabbed onto Phineas’s arm as his step-brother had gone plummeting past, holding on desperately to Phineas with one arm and a plunger with the other even as he cried with the pain and stress of the situation and the weight of his step-brother.

The platypus’s heart skipped a beat when he realised that the plunger that Ferb was hanging off of was pulling away from the window.

He wasn’t the only one who saw it either, Phineas, who was already pale with the fear and shock had gone whiter still when he had realised that Ferb was going to fall if he didn’t get the green haired boy to let go.

Perry never heard the words that passed between the boys, only saw Ferb shaking his head and caught the pleading look on Phineas’s face.

Then, to Perry’s horror, Phineas gave his brother a reassuring smile and wrenched his arm from Ferb’s grasp. Ferb cried out in fear for his brother as Phineas continued his freefall to the ground.

Just moments later, as if mocking Phineas’s sacrifice, the suction cup on the plunger Ferb was clinging to released its hold on the window.

Perry couldn’t save Phineas, but he was damned if he was going to lose Ferb too. He managed to get close enough to Ferb to grab onto the boy and fired off his grappling hook, which swung him and Ferb over to the nearest building, dropping them both on its roof.

“PHINEAS!” Ferb practically screamed, darting for the roof edge, with more emotion in his voice than Perry thought he’d ever heard from the normally mute one of the pair.

Perry wasn’t sure he could bring himself to look.

He knew what he’d see. Phineas wouldn’t have survived the fall. He’d have hit the ground and...

The platypus let out a grieved wail of a sound, giving into the pain he felt at losing one of the boys, and suddenly found himself scooped up into a pair of shaking arms and drawn into a rough hug, water dripping onto his head as his owner wept and sank to his knees.

Phineas was gone. Phineas was...

“Ferb? Perry?”

Perry froze at the sound and felt his remaining owner tense up too. It wasn’t possible...

“Hey guys? We still have things to do today...”

Ferb practically exploded from the spot, pushing Perry away and tackling the speaker in a hug that knocked both of them over.  “H...How?”

Perry already knew though and even as Phineas tried to sit up to explain, Isabella dismounted from the flying robotic unicorn that Phineas and Ferb had made her at the start of the summer and rushed over to hug both boys.

“Guess those old inventions of ours had more than one use left in them.” Phineas commented in a much softer tone than normal, hugging both carefully, mindful of the shoulder Ferb had practically wrenched out of place when he’d tried to save him from certain death and of any injuries Isabella might have gained during the fighting. “Perry?” Phineas invited him into the group.

As he leapt into the pile and joined the group hug, Perry thought of all the trouble he and the agency had gone to to locate, recover and reproduce all of the things the boys had invented over the summer and couldn’t help but think that it was totally worth it.

Crumbs of a Plot: Day 8

Thursday 8^thNovember

“Ow.” Tasha mumbled as she awoke, her eyes opening on a scene that caused her some confusion. “Train.” She complained at the world in general as she slowly worked out where she was. She had fallen asleep, leaning against the window of a moving train. Her neck was stiff and her back ached, and yet she felt more refreshed than she had for a couple of days.

As she came to she remembered why she was on the aforementioned train. When Reika had pulled her out of the gang’s clubhouse, the pair of them had run for Tasha’s flat where they had packed everything Tasha did not want to lose, sent it to Reika’s storage unit using their Duel Monsters and left the rest behind for when the gang came looking for her. Then they had legged it, getting a train to the furthest safe point they could think of, getting the earliest available train in the process.

 Tasha blinked and looked around, seeking out the friend that had come with her. Reika had not had to come with her, but the other Duellist had done so anyway. Tasha was not sorry but she could not help but wonder where her friend had gone.

She stretched, wincing as her neck twinged, objecting to the angle it had been at since she had fallen asleep, and stood up. The carriage was pretty empty, only a few people were around, some of whom were fast asleep, just as she had been until a few moments ago. Reika was nowhere in sight though, causing Tasha to worry that her friend had changed her mind and gone home. There was no reason for the other girl to run after all, she had no links to the gang of Duellists and none of them had seen her.

She should not have worried, Reika re-entered the carriage, carrying two bottles of cola and looking amused. “Hey.” She nodded as she slid into the seat next to Tasha, “Finally woke up then.”

“Sorry.” Tasha looked sheepish, “Where are we?”

“Somewhere.” Reika replied helpfully, “Between somewhere in the middle of nowhere and somewhere else. It’s highly possible we might be in the lake district right now.”

“Maybe, it’s still rather dark out.” Tasha tried to look through the window, but there was not even a hint of the outside world yet.

“Tasha.” Reika chuckled with an amused tone that suggested that her friend was being a little slow, “We’re in a tunnel.”

Tasha blinked twice and then face palmed.  “Give me the caffeine, please?” She held out her other hand.

Reika chuckled and gave her a bottle before pulling out her laptop, getting it out of sleep mode and started writing.

“You’re obsessed.” Tasha snorted before chugging half of the cola, letting out a burp and then going bright red as she blushed in embarrassment, “Pardon me.”

“And you,” Reika chuckled, “Didn’t get any writing done yesterday.”

Tasha paused, cussed and then pulled her laptop out of her bag and started tapping away. Still laughing at Tasha’s reaction to the simple statement the only time they got distracted was as they came out of the tunnel and got to see the lake district in the light of the sun rising.

“Wow.” Tasha commented, watching the huge lakes go flying past as the train sped on down the tracks. “Just wow.”

“We could stop here.” Reika offered.

“We’ve paid to go much further.” Tasha sighed, before pausing and frowning slightly. “We’re idiots, by the way.”

“Why?” Reika looked confused.

“We can get our Duel Monsters to take objects anywhere, right?” Tasha asked, continuing when Reika nodded, “So it figures that they could take us anywhere right?” Reika nodded again. “So why are we on the train?”

“Uhhh...” Reika paused, thought about it then sighed, shaking her head as she did so, “Scenic route.”

“At least we know that it will be easy to get back here if we want to.” Tasha sighed, frustrated.

Reika did not reply to that, too busy feeling like an idiot for not thinking about just getting the Duel Monsters to take them anywhere they needed to go. Not that she was very good at summoning the beasts from her deck. Reika had much more talent with the magic and traps that were at her disposal than she had in calling the huge Guardian Beasts that resided within the card in the holster at her belt.

“Right, shutting up.” Tasha decided out loud, turning her attention back to the screen of her laptop and tapping away, trying not to voice her curiosity as to why Reika’s family had a holiday home in Cornwall. It was something she had been wondering for a while but she had decided she was not going to ask until they were safely there and ensorcelled away.

As they pulled into the station in question, they shouldered their backpacks, grabbed their suitcases and headed out, emerging onto a little backwater, unmanned station. “It’s just a few minutes from here.” Reika informed her, carrying her suitcase down the narrow corridor between the trees to the left of the road they had emerged onto.

“Where are we, exactly?” Tasha asked for the second time as they continued down the well hidden pathway. The trees shielded them from view but also hid everything else, giving Tasha no idea of where they were. She started to get nervous. Here she was, out in the middle of nowhere with a girl she had only met days before. If she had not been so desperately seeking a hideaway where she could be away from the gang and they would never find her, she would have asked a lot more questions as they emerged onto a small cottage overlooking a huge cliff and a gorgeous cove which led around to a small village.

“That,” Reika pointed to the cove below, “Is Sennen Cove and this,” She gestured to the cottage, “Is our family’s hideaway.”

“I...” Tasha gazed between the cottage and the cove and then moved her gaze to the girl who had brought her here, “How?”

“This is where my sordid little tale comes into it.” Reika sighed, “Maybe we should put our stuff inside and then I’ll explain.”

Ushering Tasha into the silent domicile, Reika hit the on switch on the radio by the door. Tasha jumped at the sudden noise and swiftly became confused by the announcements from the ‘Wizarding Wireless Network.’

“That’s unusual.” Tasha commented, confused as Reika showed her to her room. “Custom station?”

“My family’s a little unusual.” Reika replied with a small, pensive smile. “Like I said, I’ll explain once we’ve settled.”

“Okay.” Tasha nodded. As Reika slipped off to check the water, gas and electricity situation, Tasha examined her room carefully. The furniture was rather sparse, just a single bed, a chest of drawers, a wardrobe and a vanity table, but it was obviously old and very well made. Tasha could not help but wonder how Reika’s family had managed to get their hands on such old, beautiful furniture.

“Wizarding Wireless Network.” Tasha chuckled as she unpacked her stuff into the right places, “Quite an imagination. I mean I don’t believe in...” She froze as she realised what she was about to say.

‘I don’t believe in wand waving nonsense’ sounded ridiculous when she thought about CardCon and what had happened. Her hand went to the lower half of her right leg as she sat on the bed and realised that she was in the home of a real live witch. One who would not attempt to murder her horribly as the ones who had attacked the convention would have done.

“You’ve worked it out?” Reika asked, hovering nervously in the doorway.

“I... Do you have a wand?” Tasha could not help but be curious.

Reika paused for a second, confused, then smiled slightly and entered the room, pulling the object out of her jacket pocket and warily handing it over. “Eleven inches, rowan and dragon heartstring.” Reika explained.

“So... your family is...” Tasha said as she gave the wand an experimental  wave, looked upset when nothing happened and handed it back.

“Mum’s a Muggle, Dad’s a Wizard.” Reika accepted it, unsurprised by the inertness of the wand when held by another, “Bit of a shock for her when she found out.”

“I can imagine.” Tasha yelped.

“Laptops, garden?” Reika offered.

“More sordid life story.” Tasha poked her in the arm.

“Deal.” Reika agreed. “Though I do have one request.”

“Oh?” Tasha asked, wondering what it was as she grabbed her laptop from her bag and followed Reika outside.

“Don’t tell anyone?” Reika asked her, “Please? The Muggles aren’t very forgiving of witches and wizards right now. Shadow-Touched are getting the sympathy vote still, but other magicals...”

“I won’t. I promise.” Tasha promised. Reika led her out to the garden, which stretched as far as the edge of the cliff and had a fence surrounding it, in an attempt to prevent anyone from falling down the sheer face.  It was not a neatly kept garden, there were too many wild flowers that looked like they had joined the garden by themselves within the flower beds and a lack of regulation in the way the hedges had grown that suggested that the cottage was not somewhere that was visited often. They sat at a picnic bench near the edge that gave them an excellent view of the beach below and the village that was, at most, a few miles further along the sands.

“So...you’re a wizard?” Tasha asked Reika as they opened their laptops and settled.

“Witch.” Reika corrected absently, thinking about the food that needed to be gotten in and whether it would be easier to get a certain servant of the family to get it for her, “Guys are wizards, women are withes.”

“So, you’re a witch.” Tasha nodded her understanding, “Why don’t you live with other witches if ‘Muggles’ don’t like you very much?” She asked, slightly confused by the whole scenario.

“That’s where my story comes into it.” Reika sighed, “My Dad is a rather powerful wizard from a long line of wizards, what those who care about such things would call a ‘Pure-Blood.’ However his family were always rather progressive for Pure-Bloods and my dad fell in love with a Muggle woman he had met while spending time with his Muggle-Born friends.”

“Your mum.” Tasha realised.

Reika nodded, “There’s something you have to understand though, at the time my Mum and Dad met, there was a Dark Lord causing terror amongst the wizarding populace, the same Dark Lord who leads the terrorists who attacked CardCon and Domino over in Japan. “

“How old is he?” Tasha exclaimed.

“It’s complicated, let me explain my tale and you can ask questions afterwards. You might have less if you get the full story.” When Tasha pretended to zip her lips Reika continued, “Anyway, this Dark Lord rallied a lot of the Pure-Blood community to his cause and he wanted my Dad on his side. Of course Dad had fallen for Mum and was having none of it, so he hid among the Muggles. Gave up magic and focused on rebuilding his life with the money his parents had given his and his new wife. A decade after I was born, the Dark Lord made the mistake of attacking the Potter family and Harry, their son, somehow managed to defeat him at just a year old.”

“Something the parents did?” Tasha asked, unable to help herself.

“That’s the common thought.” Reika allowed, “Blood wards or something similar, very dark magic but it worked. Voldemort was destroyed and the wizarding world could rebuild itself. Just in time in fact because I had shown signs of magic, my Dad had had to come out of hiding so I could get training at Hogwarts, the prestigious school for magic up in Scotland and had started classes that September. With the Dark Lord dead the atmosphere in the school did a one eighty for the most part, though due to the influence of our headmaster who some people are sure is the only person the Dark Lord ever feared, it had been a safe zone for most of us.

Anyway, school life improved, I learnt magic, blah blah blah, I graduated with a bunch of OWLs and a few NEWTs, realised that even with the Dark Lord dead the wizarding world was full of morons with their heads up their rears and returned to the Muggle world and got myself a job as a secretary.”

“But if he was dead, how can he be back now?” Tasha wanted to know.

“No one knows.” Reika sighed. “We know he died when he attacked the Potters, but somehow his soul survived. Now he’s back from the dead and everyone’s running scared again.”

Tasha frowned, mulling the problem over in her mind. “Do you think he used the Shadows to do it?”

“Until the Pharaoh showed up, no one had ever heard of the Shadows, or Shadow Magic.” Reika shook her head.

“So you’re in hiding because this guy’s back and he’s attacking everyone again?” Tasha asked.

“He’s worse this time around.” Reika shook her head, “And that’s only part of the problem. The English Wizarding community doesn’t trust anyone who is Shadow-Touched very much. It’s partly because of what happened during Shadowmorn, partly the fault of the rumours that had come out of Hogwarts about soul stealing and murder attempts by Shadow wielders and mostly because of the blasted Daily Prophet.”

“Daily Prophet?” Tasha asked, confusion obvious in her features, “Is it a newspaper?”

“It’s the only newspaper since the man in charge of its only rival, The Quibbler, died.” Reika nodded, “And it’s controlled by the heavily Death Eater controlled government.”

“And we all know how much Death Eaters love Shadow-Touched.” Tasha face palmed with a groan. “So they’re printing propaganda against the Shadow-Touched and increasing the paranoia of the general populace and they’re reacting badly to anyone who might possibly have something weird about them.”

“You got it.” Reika was a little surprised by that.

“It’s not hard to work out.” Tasha sighed, “It’s happened lots of times in the course of history after all. Look at Hitler, after all. He’s the most famous example.”

“Who?” Reika blinked at her.

“World War Two.” Tasha snorted, “You don’t learn history in your crazy magic school?”

“Only Wizarding history.” Reika looked embarrassed, “And we had a ghost teaching it. He seemed to be obsessed with the Goblin Wars.”

“Oh yeay, a ghost on repeat, excellent way to learn things.” Tasha sighed, “Hitler led the Nazis. They believed that people with blonde hair and blue eyes were the Master Race and that everyone else was inferior. They thought they should rule the world to make humanity perfect and persecuted those who did not fit the plan. The ones who were worst off were the Jews,” Seeing Reika’s confusion she explained, “They’re a religious group. The Nazis issued so much propaganda against them because they generally had a lot of money and did not look how the Nazis thought humanity should look, that people were aiding and abetting the arrest and murder of a lot of them. Those who weren’t killed on the spot were taken to ‘Concentration Camps’ where they would work till death in despicable conditions or worse, be taken to the gas chambers and murdered on mass.”

“That’s horrible.” Reika looked stunned.

“We learnt about them in secondary school.” Tasha replied, “And it sounds like that’s what this Dark Lord wants to do to the Shadow-Touched.”

Reika fell silent and they wrote in the bright sunlight, the sounds of the wildlife around them the only noise except fingers on keys for a long while before Reika asked, “People wouldn’t let Vol... Him do that, would they?”

“When people are scared, they’re not at their best.” Tasha replied, wishing she could say otherwise, “And a lot of people will go with whatever makes life easier, no matter how bad it is. Remember most people are firmly of the opinion that ‘it’s okay as long as it doesn’t happen to me or mine.’ As long as they don’t had people like us in the family, they probably won’t stop him. There will be people who fight, there probably is already, but most will roll over and play dead. It’s how most people are.”

Silence fell again and Tasha watched Reika process this. Tasha did not like being honest about this but Reika had already obviously run into the problem first hand. “I take it you got chased out of London.”

“No.” Reika smiled bitterly, “But we got a warning from a friend of my father’s that we were going to get visited by some... not so nice... people who had heard that I was Shadow-Touched and we fled. We like living after all.” Reika’s gaze was sharp as she considered her friend, “You know all of the disappearances that have been happening? Where the skulls have been found floating over the houses afterwards?” Tasha nodded, “That’s the same guys.”

“So basically we’re screwed.” Tasha realised. “The magical government won’t stop them because they’re in the pockets of the ones behind it, and the mundane one can’t...”

“I know.” Reika nodded, “And this is why Mum and Dad let me bring you here. This place is heavily warded, repels Muggles and there’s no one who knows we own it.” She smirked slightly, “You have your gang to get away from, I have a civil war to try and ignore. This place, out in the middle of nowhere, should be perfect.”

It was, Tasha agreed. The peace and quiet bar the sounds of the waves below lapping against the sandy beach, the chirping birds in the trees and the wind was incredible, certainly more relaxing than home could ever have been. On the one hand she missed the low background chatter of the bakery. On the other she did miss the thought that at any minute her former friends could enter the bakery and cause everyone else a world of trouble.

“I should probably phone my parents.” Tasha realised, embarrassed when she realised she had not done so yet. “I mean I don’t think anyone has their number but I left stuff behind that means that if people look than they’ll find out where I came from and...what?” She trailed off as she realised Reika was staring at her.

“You can’t tell them where you are, you realise that, right? There’s no point in making this place a secret if you around telling everyone.” Reika growled.

“I... I’m not going to tell them where I am, just that I’ve gone away for a few days and I’ll give them a call when I’m on my way back.” Tasha had to pause to think about it, “At least that way they won’t worry if someone from the authorities goes and talks to them.”

“Fine, fine.” Reika grouched, “Just...”

“I’ll be careful.” Tasha promised, pulling her phone out of her pocket and switching it on, swiftly entering her parents’ phone number and hitting call. She got off of her seat and went and leant against the railings as the dial tone started going off.

“Tarrent Household, Jennifer speaking.” Tasha let out a relieved sigh when her mother picked up the phone on the other end.

“Hi Mum.” Tasha mentally grinned as she spoke.

“Tasha, hi.” Her mother sounded delighted, “How are you? How’s everything going?”

“Uhhh...” Tasha let out a nervous chuckle.

“Oh honey, not again.” Her mother sounded exasperated, “You promised me you were out of the gang business, I told you Duel Monsters was nothing but trouble.”

“It’s not the game’s fault Mum, it those idiots.” Tasha defended the card game though she could not help but start to wonder if her mother was right. “Anyway, a friend and I have gone on vacation, it was a bit last minute so I didn’t have time to tell you before hand.”

“Anywhere nice? It can’t be abroad, you left your passport here.” Her mother sounded intrigued.

“Just some seaside place, I just needed to get away, you know?” Tasha replied, “I just thought I’d let you know that I’d vanished for a while and there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Be careful.” Her mother requested, “You know we’d rather you were here than up there. Especially after...”

“I know.” Tasha cut her off, not wanting to get into a row about how she wanted to live on her own and have her own life instead of being coddled by her mother who was just concerned for her disabled daughter, “I’ll be fine Mum. And if I’m not, you’ll be the first person I come to, okay?”

“Alright.” Her mother was sceptical, it was unsurprising considering Tasha had said that before and had not done so. Her mother thought it was because Tasha was afraid her mother would get her committed again, like she had when Tasha had woken up from the Shadow Game, she could not know that it was actually because Tasha was afraid of telling her parents about her powers after the last time she had brought up the subject of magic around them. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Sure, Mum.” Tasha promised with a sigh. “Love you. Bye.” She put the phone down before her mother could respond and turned back to the table to find Reika watching her like a hawk. “See?” She demanded sharply, “I didn’t give our hiding place away.”

“No.” Reika allowed, “But that didn’t sound like a fun phone call.”

“My mother doesn’t believe in magic.” Tasha snorted, “She believes Shadowmorn was a publicity stunt gone wrong and the terrorists who attacked CardCon used some kind of hallucinogenic drug so people thought they were using magic.”

“Seriously?” Reika was incredulous, wondering how someone could refuse the proof of their own eyes quite that thoroughly.

“Those are just her saner theories.” Tasha nodded, slumping back into her seat, “But then she never did accept my story about the Shadow Game. She had me committed to an asylum until I stopped talking about it.” Tasha looked both frustrated and sad about that, “It took me a year or so, but I worked out the sooner I played along and pretended to stop hearing voices and talking about the game world I’d lived in for the past year, the sooner I could get home, so I just stopped talking to anyone.” She chuckled as she smiled at Reika, “You’re the first person I’ve had an honest conversation about all of this stuff with outside of the blasted Duelling Club for about eight years.”

“I’m honoured.” Reika smiled back, though she felt like kicking Tasha’s mother. She could understand where the woman had come from. It was not normal for someone to talk about hearing voices and game worlds that only she could see, but would it not have been better for Tasha to live in her own fantasy world than open up to the wrong people because there was no one else she could discuss her abilities and history with?

Still she was here and Tasha was here and they could discuss whatever they needed to with each other and even if they weirded each other out for a while at least they knew that the other person would not flee or abandon them to their troubles.

It was a strange thought, that they had only just met and already Reika knew more about Tasha than her parents did. The Half-Blood witch could not help but wonder why they had both opened up to each other so much over such a short period of time. It was not even like they had that much in common besides National Novel Writing Month, the need to find somewhere peaceful to write, being Shadow-Touched and a love of Duel Monsters. It was insane for Reika to suddenly decide she needed to drag the other girl, to a magical hideaway and show her part of her world.

And yet it felt right, trusting the once Muggle, now magical brunette with some of the secrets of her world. Trusting her to keep the secrets and not spread them around was a huge risk, but for some reason Reika felt it was the right one and she could not work out why.

Tasha felt much the same way about her secrets. Why she had suddenly, out of nowhere, decided that she could trust the Witch before her. She had not told many about her past, mostly due to the lessons she had learned in the asylum before her own lies had gotten her out of there. No one wanted to listen to what they believed was the ravings of a lunatic, even when she had been able to show off her powers to prove what she had been saying. Reika was the only one who she had ever told who had both believed her and not wanted to use her powers for their own gain. It was a weird feeling to have someone she could trust to be like that.

Tasha supposed that it was because Reika had her own abilities, ones that could probably do a lot more than hers could. Magic was not new to the half caste young woman in front of her. So she probably thought Tasha was weird but probably was not fazed by the possibilities that were presented. Tasha found herself curious as to what a school of magic could teach children.

“What was Hogwarts like?” Tasha asked, interrupting the writing process as she hit the twenty-one thousand mark and paused to check her notes as to what she was writing next.

“Hogwarts?” Reika blinked at her, confusion written all over her face. “You want to know about my school?”

“Yeah.” Tasha nodded, “It’s not every day I get to meet someone who went through a magical senior school. I mean it hasto be more interesting than my boring old, what was the word you used? Muggle?”

“That’s the official term for non-magicals, yes.” Reika nodded. “Though I don’t think you count.”

“I was born Muggle.” Tasha pointed out.

“And that still seems weird to me.” Reika complained under her breath.

“Why?” Tasha asked curiously.

“Well Muggles are Muggles.” Reika tried to explain it, “I mean...” She sighed, giving up on writing until she had explained properly. “Until Shadowmorn Muggles were Muggles and Wizards were Wizards. It was that simple. As far as we were concerned, everyone who had magic were Wizards and no non-Wizard was allowed to know about the Wizarding world.”

“And then the Shadows gave Muggles magic and everything changed.” Tasha got it.

“I mean I don’t know what would have happened in your case.” Reika nodded, “You were magical long before Shadowmorn, but people don’t like that Muggles suddenly have control over this powerful magic that’s obviously dark and is stronger than the magic we’ve hidden for over a thousand years. You’ve seen some of the fallout.”

“CardCon.” Tasha murmured, gaze falling back to the screen of her laptop.

“And Domino.” Reika nodded, “Though that one, I’m pretty certain, was meant to be a direct strike on Harry Potter and, in the same strike, the Pharaoh.”

“You mentioned Harry Potter before. Isn’t he the one who killed the Dark Lord as a baby?” Tasha asked, mulling it over in her mind.

“That’s right.” Reika nodded, “He’s been friends with the Pharaoh since they both started Hogwarts.”

“Umm, the Pharaoh’s only a year younger than us.” Tasha pointed out.

“I know, but he’s been going to Hogwarts.” Reika chuckled, “The Wizarding community isn’t large, things like this get around quickly. Besides where did you think he disappeared to for nine months of the year?”

“Huh.” Tasha blinked, “That makes so much sense. I suppose they just overlooked the age difference or something.”

“Rumour mill says De-aging Amulets that make him and his friends look the right age for school again.” Reika passed on with a giggle.

“Wizards can do that?” Tasha looked shocked. She grinned when Reika nodded, “I want one that makes me look this age forever.”

“I’m not sure I can do that but I’m sure there someone out there who would try.” Reika shrugged, “Anyway, you wanted to know about Hogwarts.”

“I did, yes. Details woman, details.” Tasha waved at her.

“Well, there are four houses...”