[LN] Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble

[morethanmyth]

Upon arrival to Burgess, the others found themselves in the middle of a mess. Children all wandering towards the witches' cabin in the woods, surrounding by a magical dome that didn't let in any adults, the adults all wandering towards the party at the local community college, where the adults were under a spell meant to cause them to dance themselves to death.

The songs, fortunately, had stopped by the time they arrived, but with all the kids inside the dome and all the adults entranced at the party, they had to find some other way to break the spells aside from brute force.

Which meant killing the witches.

Fortunately they had time - at least according to the talking cat that appeared when they tried to break into the dome, claiming to be an enemy of the witches. Apparently peeking inside meant he saw that the spell was draining the life from Jack and the other young myths because they had a surplus of it as myths. Jack in particular had a ton of life energy due to his long unlife and the belief the kids had in him, and it meant that it'd take a long time for the spell to drain the life from all the kids to kill them. It was sucking them all dry, but while Jack bore the brunt of the spell, and then the other myth children that were part of the team next, all of the kids would live.

Until he rain dry. Once he was nearly tapped, the other myths kids all would run close to empty, too, and then the mortal children - and they'd all die at the same time.

Which mean they all had a very important task to accomplish - alone. Other than the team members that had shown up, backup from the Pole wasn't coming, since all the others were out dealing with putting out other fires around the world or not ready to leave the Pole and fight yet.

Comments

Re: Winnifred Sanderson - Nico and Trixie

[spellitonce]

"That's not going to save her," Nico hissed back. But she did slow down, just a little. It'd be better for Molly if they went into this with a plan, after all.

"What's your speciality with your powers right now?"

Re: Winnifred Sanderson - Nico and Trixie

[elementofpeanutbutter]

It took an absurd amount of willpower for Trixie not to boast loud and proud about her powers.

"Trixie is the premiere pony of prestidigitation. lights and illusion bend to Trixie's will. Ropes dance and colors shift at my whim and clouds of smoke and blackness obscure Trixie's comings and goings from the prying eyes of her audience."

Which was an incredibly flowery way of saying illusionary spells were her speciality though she had other spells that were less powerful. Hopefully Nico could parse through Trixie's prose.

"And yourself?" She added with emphasized hush in her voice creeping along the scrub grass.

Re: Winnifred Sanderson - Nico and Trixie

[spellitonce]

It took Nico a moment to parse what Trixie had said, and another to grit her teeth to keep from snarking about it.

"Obscuring our comings and goings sounds like a good plan here," she said. She hefted the Staff in her hand, the tiny red jewels tinkling softly against the metal ornament on the head. "I can cast any spell, once. Short of raising the dead. But I have to bleed a little for it."

Ugh, great, she was going to traumatize a My Little Pony.

Re: Winnifred Sanderson - Nico and Trixie

[elementofpeanutbutter]

She had an excellent point, but as Trixie mulled over the possibility a problem came to mind. She was distracted however by the explanation of Nico's powers.

"You...bleed for it?" Her face screwed up in concern.

"But...only a little?"

Still blood magic was some of the darkest magics written of. Trixie had never even seen such magic, only read about it in her quest to overthrow Twilight Sparkle.

HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER!

[fionna_time]

Ok, so there were still some questions Fionna had. Why was she here? Why was a witch going all nutso in this creepy butt place? Why was there a flippin' PONY walking around who could talk and do magic?

It was a little unsettling, anyway. After all, there was Lord Monochrome. She expected HIM to have magic and talk though, not a unicorn, let alone a blue one.

"Uh, magic. Riight." Fionna looked at her sword, which paled here, and now she had to make sure these guys knew who she was. "If you can knock her to the ground, I can...mess her up, I guess?"

Re: HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER!

[andcauldronbubble]

A mocking voice came at them from all directions.

"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes," she called out mockingly. "Not me, of course. Not you, the little pony with the parlor tricks, who wants real power. Not the girl with the sword who reeks of heroism, ptew -" She spat, obviously disgusted with Fionna, almost superstitiously, as if just saying the word 'heroism' tainted her tongue. Clearly, she despised the goodness she sensed in her down to the very marrow of her bones. "How disgusting."

"No, the other one, with that beautiful staff. Sistaaah, why are you wasting your time with these miserable mortal wastes of air? You should be joining us, your fellow witches, especially when that darkness within you, dare I say it, rivals our own. Breathtaking."

[staff_and_wielder]

Blondie's arrival was officially moved down the list of Nico's problems when the surround-sound picked up. She hefted the Staff of One and narrowed her eyes.

God, she was so sick of people inviting her to the Dark Side of the Force.

"You came here and you stole my sister, you ugly cow," she shouted back. "You let her go and I'll give you a real close look at my pretty staff."

Flattening her nose across her face absolutely counted as a 'real close look'.

[elementofpeanutbutter]

Trixie practically jumped out of her cape and hat at the arrival of their enemy. Her tail bristled and she squared her hooves I'm the soft grass and dirt.

The words stung as they always had. People questioning her talents, calling her a fruad. And while it was true she longed for the kind of power she had only had a taste of, that made her no less angry at the taunting.

"You make a foolish choice in overlooking The Great And Powerful Trixie!" She spat twisting and turning to try and sense where the magic was coming from. They couldn't see her yet but the purple glow in Trixie's horn was seeking out the power.

craving the power~ mocked a voice in her head which she promptly ignored.

[fionna_time]

So her teammates were different, and that witch noticed it too. One of them WAS a witch: something Fionna was curious about but not freaked over. She tended to work with people and their magic junk all the time. So long as they weren't trying to mess her up and were going after some enemy, a little magics always welcomed. Where Fionna was from, heck, it was necessary.

The unicorn-WELL. Fionna was a professional and wasn't gonna gush over seeing her first unicorn (right now). Prince Bubblegum had sworn up and down that these didn't exist even though Cake told her otherwise. So a unicorn here and being one of her partners was just AWESOME.

As for the witch, who was pretty much flat out saying she though Fionna was gross, the girl gritted her teeth and flexed her hands over the sword.

"Rather be good then some evil coward jerkface in the sky! Come down here and say that stuff!"

[andcauldronbubble]

Trixie's horn was starting to get a bead on Winifred but she wasn't going to make it easy on them.

"I think not, but there are some miserable souls that want to come up and see you!"

Her cackle filled the air, and then the ground started to tremble, as if something was stirring underneath - and then the first rotting hand shot up through the earth. Then a head.

Yep, zombies. Enjoy those zombies starting to pop out of the ground like daffodils, you three.

[staff_and_wielder]

Zombies?!

Well, it could be worse. It could be vampires.

"I hope you're good with that sword you're carrying!" Nico called out to the blond girl, backing toward Trixie so that she'd at least have some warning before anything started gnawing on her head. "'Cause it's going to take me a moment or two to work up anything else!"

She slammed the butt of the Staff down on the back of a grasping hand and kicked an emerging head as she bit down on the inside of her cheek to try and draw blood for a spell -- and tried to come up with the wording for it, too.

"Trixie, keep looking for this witch!"

[elementofpeanutbutter]

Trixie backed up a few steps till her rear found itself against a tombstone. A decaying hand shot out of the ground wrapping around her leg and she gave a startled shriek bucking up onto her hind legs and dragging the beast out of the ground on accident.

The magic in her horn flickered off for a moment as she panicked and began stomping wildly to try and stuff the undead human back in the ground. Only by luck did she avoid his gnashing teeth before her powerful front legs flattened him back into the churned up soil.

"T-trixie requires some higher ground...elevation to better...scan yes." She babbled in a cowardly stammer as her wild eyes scanned the grave yard and settled on a monument marked by a large stone angel with it's face hidden by it's hands. It seemed to be crying.

Whatever it's sorrow, it would keep Trixie out of reach of the disgusting creatures now stumbling to their feet. In a dash that had been perfected from years of being run out of town by angry rubes Trixie cut a path through the headstones, jumping and dancing around the corpses as they lashed out for her.

Climbing the statue itself would prove a little more difficult given her lack of fingers, but you didn't spend your entire life as a unicorn without learning how to overcome such obstacles. Her hat and horn began to glow with a pinkish almost violet hue causing the hat to lift off her head. A coil of rope like a snake shot from her hats insides to wrap around the upper body of the angel several times before the other end of the rope wound around Trixie. By this time the zombies were surrounding her however and she was suddenly regretting that she'd abandoned the other girls.

Still if they were lucky her flight and panic might have drawn more of the creatures attention.

The rope pulled taught and the blue sorceress scrambled up the side of the statue in an incredibly ungraceful and ridiculous looking manner. She wasn't fast enough however and one of the summoned beasts bit down on the fluff of her tail only to have it's head pop off it's shoulders as she jerked free.

Screaming in fright she flung her tail left and right wildly till the head dislodged and flew into the darkness. If her running hadn't gotten some attention the screaming absolutely would have.

So much for the great and powerful hero she had tried to sound like.

[fionna_time]

"Don't worry, I gotcha! This isn't the first time I had to deal with zombies!"

Which was true. This was, in fact, the third. Yes, she got infected the last time, but that was only for a little bit and it worked out all right in the end! In the meantime, it looked like she could help her magic folk by showing a little bit of brawn. Fionna has no problem with this. The insults hurled at her by the witch had stung, and her obvious cowardice had done nothing to calm her down.

"Get lost, ugly!" She snarled, ramming her sword into the chest of a few advancing zombies. "Nobody wants your gross guts around, stay in the ground!"

There was no time to give proper aid to the pony, but if she was looking for that witch, she could at least clear a path for the good witch, right? She needed coverage. Fionna was slicing a little more wildly, making sure she was at the forefront of their group: the more attention they paid to her, the less they would for witchy-poo in the back.