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“I can’t believe they’re making us clean the house this thoroughly,” lamented Elliot, scrubbing at a particularly stubborn windowpane. “I’m pretty sure we didn’t even make some of these stains.”
“At least you got some extra-strength cleaning stuff off of Susan,” Ellen responded, carefully removing all the books from another shelf. “And Tedd was kind enough to loan us some spare toothbrushes his father had lying around.”
“Still.” He gave a grunt of satisfaction as the unidentifiable flake of… something… came off. “All right, that’s the windows clean. What’s next?”
“Well, I’ve got ‘move the bookshelves’, so… I think swap out the lightbulbs?”
“Don’t tell me I’m going to have to climb up to the stairway ceiling.”
“I mean, you could always…” Ellen started trying to make some sort of gesture with her hands, before pausing a moment in realization that such a pantomime would be pretty hard. Especially with Elliot in the next room over. “You know, Cheer it up.”
“Now you’re just trying to pawn off painting ceilings and stuff on me.”
“Do YOU want to get the stepladder?” The only stepladder the Dunkel family possessed had seen better days, at least in theory; but as far as either twin knew, it had always been so rusted that it couldn’t even fold up right. At Elliot’s answering silence, Ellen continued. “Plus, I think they figured you’d do something like that anyway - you’ll notice we’re not being given any help in moving this thing,” she slapped the eight-foot-tall bookcase, “and I don’t think between the two of us we could do it without magic.”
“Seems kinda counterproductive to punish us for using magic, by making us use magic.”
“I’m not gonna complain. Plus the magic was kinda secondary to the whole mess in the first place.”
“Point.” Elliot took a deep breath as he prepared to transform. “The curtains are all closed, right?”
“Yeah, you should be good.”
---
“I still don’t understand how lights three rooms over were affected,” whined Elliot in the form of Cheerleadra, unscrewing yet another neon pink lightbulb eight feet up and adding it to the growing, vibrant pile.
“You certainly can’t say that Tedd’s party-in-a-box didn’t work as well as advertised,” Ellen mused. “Wonder what he’s up to, anyway.”
“Who knows? Hanging with Sarah, maybe? I think they’re still doing lab stuff, last I heard.”
Suddenly Elliot began to vibrate, in a familiarly disconcerting way. *Bzz bzz*
“Eep!” Thankfully the latest lightbulb hadn’t yet been fully unscrewed, though the sudden jostle did give it another quarter turn or so. *Bzz bzz* “Never gonna get used to that.” *Bzz bzz*
“You okay?” Ellen’s voice had a distinct note of concern to it.
“Yeah, just-” *Bzz bzz* “Just getting a phone call.” *Bzz bzz* “Hang on.” He answered, as per usual in this form, though with a bit more of a tentative tone than he would have with a proper form of caller ID. “Hi?”
“Hey Elliot!” Grace’s cheerful voice rang through, and Elliot untensed.
“Oh! Hey Grace! What’s up?”
“Eh, you know. One of Tedd’s boxes went off in his dad’s office, so we’re kinda out in the woods right now.”
“The woods??” Elliot’s confusion was evident even to Ellen. “He didn’t make you clean it up or anything?”
“Nah, he just pushed us out the door, muttering something about classified documents.”
Meanwhile, Ellen had wandered into the room, mouthing the words “the woods?!” at her twin.
“I guess that makes sense, sorta. Why the woods, though, of all places?”
“Tedd kinda didn’t really want to go anywhere and it’s not that far from home, really.”
“Isn’t it like a half-hour walk from your house?”
Suddenly Tedd’s annoyed voice cut in. “An HOUR and a half. And I was oversold on how nice a hike we’d have.”
“It’s only three miles, that’s not that far,” admonished Grace. “By the way, Elliot, sorry, meant to mention you’re on speakerphone.”
“There’s no one else around, right?” A touch of worry settled in his voice, though it was rather likely that the answer was no.
“Nah. Not the sort of weather people want to be out in, really,” said Grace. “It’s all clouds and damp breezes and impending storms and stuff like that. Just us and the birds.”
“We could be inside, you know. There’s like… the library, or the mall, or something. Even just the park or something.”
“Salty Crackers?” Elliot’s interjection fit neatly into a gap in the conversation, but it still somehow felt like interrupting. Those woods were close by, after all.
“Or that, yeah. …That’s not a bad idea, honestly. Won’t be many people around with no tournament.”
“Is Justin even-? Wait,” Elliot interrupted himself, “Of course he is, it’s Thursday.”
“Right… I’ll call real quick, see if it’s busy.”
A few seconds passed, and then all Elliot heard was a few screeching sounds, someone screaming, and then just static, followed shortly by the phone call disconnecting.
“Tedd? Grace??” The mounting fear in his voice was evident to Ellen. “How do I redial???”
“Elliot? Everything okay?”
“... They got cut off with screams and they’re not picking up. I gotta go!” And so saying, Elliot dashed to the window, slammed it open, and flew out at nearly his top speed.
“Well, that’s not good.” Ellen walked over to the window to close it, but first checked outside to make sure that no one had seen Elliot leave so quickly. Which was when she locked eyes with the neighbors’ kid, Charlie.
“Well, that’s really not good.” But before she decided on a course of action, she closed the window carefully and drew the curtains again, and paused to consider her options.
---
“What the hell!” Tedd wasn’t quite hyperventilating, but he was definitely very unsettled, sitting on the ground as he was, and his scream had been very unladylike (despite its sound). “Since when do birds just attack like that!”
Grace, meanwhile, had taken the time to unfurl her antennae, and was swiveling her head around like a radar - the better to find the hawks and negotiate, if possible. “It sounds like… they’re hungry?”
“Did they eat our phones?!”
“They tried to, at least. Don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourselves! It’s not food!” Grace shouted up to the air fruitlessly; it seemed the raptors that had swooped down to catch their prey had long since disappeared, with their echoing screeches quickly fading.
“Carp. Well, that’s gonna worry Elliot. And Justin, if he’d picked up. And dad, once he finds out.”
“Elliot does know where we are,” Grace reminded him.
“Yeah, and he’s probably gonna freak out that we got jumped or something.”
“Mmm.” Grace’s mouth screwed up in an agreeing frown. “We should head to Salty Crackers - Justin’s got a phone, he could let Elliot know we’re all right.”
“It would be nice to be inside.” Tedd heaved himself up, and shivered a bit before steeling himself for yet more walking. “All right, let’s go.” Then he noticed Grace’s hand. “Wait a moment, are you bleeding?”
“Am I? Oh. Ouch.” And at that moment, the adrenaline wore off - as she stopped to clutch her hand. “OW!”
“Good thing you heal fast,” he muttered, taking his thin jacket off and wrapping it tightly around her hand to try to stanch the wound. “Still, we should get this looked at ASAP. And I wouldn’t fly with that, either.” He sighed. “Well, now which way do we go?”
Grace winced in pain. “This way? I hope…”
And for lack of a better option, that was the way they went.
---
Justin was, as ever, loitering behind the counter, with Luke leaning against it, as they usually did when Luke was around and the shop was otherwise unfrequented. George was technically also on duty, leaning against the wall as usual and passing time with some game or another on some flavor or other of handheld console. But it wasn’t like there were any customers around, other than Luke who was somewhat of a fixture more than a customer at this point.
“Half the point of playing is to have fun, for both sides. You can’t seriously be trying to say that control decks are fun to play against?” Justin and Luke, of course, had gotten into a mild discussion about Magickal Gatherings. All in good fun, of course, at least for the time being.
“Is there a viable deck which is? At least it’s an interesting strategy which isn’t just mindless hitting with big numbers.”
“Sure, and all-out attack has ever been viable as the core strategy.”
“Didn’t you tell me that Tensaided nearly beat you with a deck that did just that?”
“Only nearly. And he attacked with a device, not a monster, so it’s not even like your typical control deck could have done much. And he used a really complicated combo to summon it, which is decidedly not ‘mindless hitting with big numbers’.”
*Bzz bzz*
“Oop, hang on. Got a phone call…” Justin rummaged around his pockets before he figured out where he’d stowed the phone today. “Hey, Justin here, how’s it going?”
There was some sort of weird whooshing sound in the background, and odd scrabbling and… pecking sounds? Whoever it was who had called didn’t say anything, though there was something that sounded a bit like screeching and maybe faint shouting. All-around, rather odd. Justin checked the caller ID - Tedd.
“Everything okay?” Luke looked concerned.
“I… think so. It’s Tedd - you know, that purple-haired guy who shows up for tournaments sometimes? Didn’t answer, though. Probably just pocket dialed me or something like that.”
“Hmm.”
They both paused for a moment, trying to remember where the conversation that Tedd’s call had interrupted had dropped off, when Justin’s phone began to ring again. This time, however, Justin checked the caller ID before picking up.
“Elliot…?” Justin and Luke glanced at each other in a bit of confusion - Justin didn’t often get calls from his friends while at work, let alone twice in one minute - but he picked up the call anyway.
“Hey Elliot, what’s up?”
A voice which was distinctly Cheerleadra’s came through the phone - thank goodness he hadn’t set it to speakerphone. “You got a weird phone call from Tedd just now?”
“Yyyyyyeeaah?”
“He’s with Grace in the woods by Salty Crackers. Or he was. She called me, but was cut off with screeches and screaming.”
“What?!” Justin barely fit his exclamation between Elliot’s sentences - he hadn’t stopped to let a word in edgewise yet.
“I’m heading over to find them. Can you take a break and help?”
“Uh, YEAH. Just a moment.” Justin turned to George and called over, loudly enough that the phone could pick up his voice despite briefly not being next to his mouth. “George!” George looked over, but Justin hadn’t waited for him to actually respond before continuing. “I gotta go - my friends might be in danger. Watch the store while I’m gone?”
It took a lot to shock George, but shock him the casualness of Justin’s comment did, such that his only reaction (other than widening his eyes) was to silently nod.
“Thanks.” Grabbing his jacket, Justin nodded over at the door to Luke. “C’mon, let’s go.”
Luke took a deep breath, about to say something, before he changed his mind and his eyes flashed with resolve. “Right. Let’s.”
Justin, meanwhile, had already turned his attention back to his phone as he marched to the door. “So who else have you called?”
“You’re the first, being closest. And they said something about heading your way. Was gonna call Tedd’s dad. Nanase, Susan, Sarah, Diane, you know. Everyone.”
“I really hope you’re overthinking this.”
“Don’t want to risk it.”
“Agreed. We’re heading out now. Call everyone else. Let’s all meet in Salty Crackers’ parking lot.”
Elliot paused, as if he was silently nodding in agreement (or so Justin surmised afterward), then hung up.
“So what exactly is happening?” Luke, being still quite out of the loop and having heard only an extremely vague half of the conversation, asked with concerned pointedness.
“Grace and Tedd both got cut off from phone calls with odd sounds at the same time. Somewhere in those woods, possibly nearby.”
Luke just sighed. “Okay. At least I know what I’ve gotten myself into.” Though he definitely looked as if he was chewing on something - but Justin knew at this point better than to ask if Luke didn’t want to say.
But without pressing Luke, all there was to do was to wait and see who showed up first.
---
There was a choice to be made here. Elliot was definitely already on the hunt for Tedd and Grace, and was probably making more calls on the way, if Ellen knew anything at all about her twin. So now the question arose - should she stay or should she go? Because Charlie had definitely seen Cheerleadra bursting out of the upstairs window, and only Ellen knew that, but she was also one of the only people who actually knew effective searching tactics. Though… Nanase would definitely help, and she’d be even more prepped. And her magic more directly useful.
Well, that settled that. And a little thought suggested a maybe-decent way to convince Charlie not to spill his guts if asked if he’d seen anything interesting. Bribery was always effective - all she’d need would be… oh, probably 20 dollars or so. …although, he was, like, 5. Maybe she’d be able to get away with ten.
Sometimes it helped to be able to remember so clearly what it was like to be 5.
And then the trick was just to figure a good way to sneak out of the house so Charlie couldn’t see, zip around the block real quick, and make as if she was just returning from having snuck out. Easy as peaches.
Just one last piece to piece it all together - a superheroine costume to make it believable. Shame Elliot didn’t keep any spares on hand. There was a costume store not that far away, though…
---
“Are you sure you know where we’re headed?” Tedd’s voice was laced with undertones of weariness, despair, and more than a little worry.
“No. But the sun is that way, I think, so this is east-ish.” Grace, meanwhile, was striding forth fearlessly through the pathless trees - it wasn’t entirely clear if her location of the sun was much more than wishful thinking, considering the clouded sky.
“‘East-ish’?” Tedd grunted, heaving himself over a fallen tree that Grace had lightly jumped over. Pausing to catch his breath, he continued. “Why did we not just follow the trail? Why oh why?”
Grace shrugged. “Too late now. And moving is better than staying here. At least my hand hurts less now.”
“Thank goodness for small blessings, at least.”
The two of them marched on in silence, until they felt a soundless crack between them both, and a fairy doll popped into existence.
“Tedd? Grace?” Nanase, in fairy doll form, was swinging her head wildly around looking for something.
“Nanase?” They responded as one, her intrusion coming as a complete surprise.
Nanase, meanwhile, sighed in relief. “I’m glad to see you’re safe for now. Elliot said that something interrupted your call with him and he was real concerned. What happened? …and where are we?”
“Yeah, some hawks tried to eat our phones. Grace said they went this way.”
“I think, anyway, judging by what they said as they left.”
Tedd shrugged. “Maybe. We’re, uh… somewhere in the downtown woods? I’d like to be more precise, but, you know…”
Nanase nodded. “Gotcha. I can fly up real quick and figure where we are. Just a sec…”
She floated backward a bit to get a little bit of a clearer path, then shot upward, darting here and there to evade branches and leaves that got in the way, until Grace and Tedd almost lost track of where she was in the tangled canopy. At that point, she was nearly halfway up, as measured by the nearest tree, when a dark blur flicked past and she disappeared from sight entirely.
After a few seconds they felt another soundless crack, and Grace let out a muted gasp as she was hit by something akin to a punch in the stomach. Looking down, she saw what seemed to be another fairy doll with Nanase’s face rushing into her coat’s pocket and pulling it mostly shut afterward.
“I didn’t think about the hawks…” whimpered Nanase.
“Are you okay?!” Once again, Grace and Tedd shouted near in unison, though Grace was a bit slower this time.
“It… it was quick. And painful. And I don’t think I’ll leave your pocket.”
Grace tried her best to gently pat Nanase on the shoulder without opening up the pocket too much. “You don’t have to. Stay where it’s safe, and report to the others we’re not in danger.”
Alas, she’d mindlessly chosen the wrong hand, and Nanase yelped at the bloody sight. “Your hand…!”
“That was the hawk. It’ll heal.” Resolve echoed through Grace’s tone - but was it wavering, at the edge, there?
“We’ll be… near the top of that hill, how about. It’ll be easier to see us there, maybe.”
“Okay…” Nanase took a deep, sobbing breath. “Just give me a bit.”
“Sure.”
---
“I’m not entirely clear on how we’re going to be much help,” inquired Sarah, gesturing at herself and Ashley. “I mean, yeah, we’ll help, the more eyes the better, but…”
“Just don’t lose your phones and you’ll be help enough,” Mr. Verres directed, as Susan and Diane rolled into the increasingly crowded parking lot. When they arrived at the impromptu circle, he continued. “Everyone’s here?”
“I think everyone but Ellen… and Elliot, and they’re grounded,” Elliot-as-Cheerleadra piped up, his eyes briefly darting to Luke, who had been surreptitiously staring and looked away bashfully. “Nanase and I can fly around while you all walk?”
“There’s very aggressive hawks. Would not recommend it. Hurt Grace, too.” Nanase had wrapped herself in the blanket Mr. Verres always carried in his car; she’d grabbed it near-immediately after waking up from her second fairy doll excursion, and hadn’t said much yet.
Diane piped up. “I invited Noah. He indicated that he was likely to be busy; I didn’t press him on it.”
Mr. Verres sighed. “That brings up the possibility of inviting Raven to join. Which would be the right move, wouldn’t it.”
“He’s kinda out of state right now,” noted Diane, “and from what I gather he won’t be back for a while.”
“Ah. Well, if we’re all here, then, I’ve got an announcement to make. Since the birds which attacked Tedd and Grace stole their phones, we’ll need a way to stay in communication without them. Fortunately, I happen to have some watches with radio transmitters and receivers built in. And GPS, conveniently enough.”
“What, those things?” Susan’s objection was swift. “Their battery life was terrible. When the others went after Damien we got, like, two sentences out before they died!”
“I also generally keep them uncharged. I have… ways… of charging them quickly,” Mr. Verres flicked his eyes over towards Luke, “and topped them off before I came here.”
Luke whispered to Justin. “How do they work?” He didn’t really want to draw attention to himself, but it was a valid question, and he was likely one of the few here who wasn’t already practiced at their use.
“Just press the big red button when you want to say something,” Justin whispered back. Then, upon further reflection, he raised his voice. “They’re all tuned to the same frequency, right?”
“Should be,” noted Mr. Verres. “Now, I’ve only got three of these, so I think it’s probably best if we split into three groups. Sarah, Susan, Diane, you’re the first group. Nanase, Justin, Luke, you’re the second. Ashley, Cheerleadra, you’re with me.”
Everyone looked around at each other - it wasn’t entirely clear whether he’d picked those groups as a spur-of-the-moment selection of three in order from around the circle, or had planned them a bit ahead of time. No one seemed particularly inclined to disagree, though.
“You’re all okay with that? All right - let’s head out. Radio in as soon as you find them, and we’ll track your watch.”
---
Charlie lived next door to some rather cool people, right out of his bedtime stories. No one listened when he told them all the cool things he saw, but he looked hard. There were lots of fairies and girls and girl fairies, and sometimes people even flew around over there. That hadn’t happened for a while, though. It had been at least a forever ago - almost an hour!
Then around the corner came the girl who’d flown out the window then. Brown hair, weird clothes with a super cool cape, all that. She was moving real slow, like she didn’t want to be seen, but Charlie saw her. And, for once, she saw him too. That made him happy. No one ever looked at him.
What made him more happy was when she gave him money! 10 whole dollars, which is 100 whole cents, enough for… a whole bunch of candy! She also said not to tell anyone, but he always told his parents stuff. That was the right way to do things, and that’s what he’d do.
Maybe she’d give him more money if he was clever, though, like all those fairy tale characters. Like she was. He could tell his parents the whole truth this time. Really, she just didn’t want to be caught, right? Even if his parents didn’t believe the truth, why should he tell a lie? That seemed good and right to him.
And truly he reported the truth, and his silly parents heard a lie with just a bit of truth to it.
---
“So. Nanase.”
“Luke.”
“You… have magic, like Cheerleadra?”
“...I suppose there’s not much point in hiding it now. Yeah, I do.”
“Right.”
Nanase, Justin and Luke struggled their way through another tricky patch of forest ground in silence, until Luke finally spoke again, fiddling with the watch he was wearing.
“So… I should… mention… I had an idea. That I didn’t really want to bring up in front of everyone.”
“What’s up?” Justin’s concern was evident, but Luke sounded more anxious than nervous about this supposed idea. So it was probably fine?
“You know how I can… you know, see magic? And specifically, Grace’s magic?”
Nanase pointedly made an effort to not indicate her prior knowledge of this fact, and did a terrible job of it.
Justin, meanwhile, was more shocked than anything else. “You’re not thinking…”
Luke nodded. “I don’t want to use my power. But… this is about the best way to use it I can imagine.”
“And you don’t want anyone else to know, really.”
“Yeah.”
Nanase and Justin exchanged a quick, guilty glance that Luke thankfully missed, being busy climbing over another fallen tree. She eventually spoke up, first of the two. “I promise I won’t tell anyone else you can do magic stuff.”
“I wouldn’t hurt you intentionally like that,” Justin added, after a nearly-imperceptible pause. “Though I can’t promise Grace hasn’t already said something to her boyfriend Tedd, at least.”
“And we’re looking for both of them. Great. Does he have magic too?”
“...Yeah.”
Luke just sighed a deep sigh. “All right, then,” he said with resignation. “Give me a moment.”
And the colors of magic streamed into his eyes with such luminous iridescence that he was briefly blinded. Crying out in pain and clutching his hands to his eyes, he fell to one knee, and managed to sputter just one sentence.
“How much of the search party has magic?!”
---
“You’re sure that’s a good idea, Susan? Nanase seemed… traumatized, almost, by what those hawks must have done to her fairy doll.” Sarah was not quite as well-built for the path they were traveling as Susan or Diane, but she was managing.
“I imagine a hawk wouldn’t react well to Nase de-summoning in its grasp.” Susan swung at another branch, using a summoned sword as an impromptu machete.
“Plus it’s not like Susan feels everything she does,” Diane added, carefully picking her way through the trail of Susan’s devastation.
“She definitely shares some feelings. Big ones, at least. And a hawk’s talons would be a big feeling at that size.”
“Just don’t think too hard about it, I’m sure it’d be fine,” Diane said unhelpfully. “An extra pair of eyes and a possible early warning system will come in real handy, I bet.”
“Let’s just… talk about something else, okay?”
“Sure,” Sarah and Diane agreed insincerely.
They struggled with forging a path for a bit, before Diane piped up again.
“Okay, bit of an intrusive thought, but I wonder if the hawk went for Grace because it knew she was part-squirrel?”
“If it did, she must have looked pretty tasty. Guess that’s something we’ll want to avoid,” Sarah replied.
Susan just sighed, tightened the watch around her sword-arm’s wrist yet again, and continued onward, trying to ignore them.
---
“Elliot?” Despite the presumably quite frustrating branches that kept smacking him in the face, Mr. Verres’ expression was unreadable.
“Hm?”
“You said you and Ellen are grounded?”
“Oh. Um.”
“I do appreciate your being here. But I may have to tell your parents.”
At this point Ashley interposed herself between them. “Mr. Verres, sir, he only left the house when he heard something was wrong with Tedd.”
“Elliot can defend himself.”
“Strictly speaking it wasn’t being restricted to the house, so much as it was having to clean up the mess from Tedd’s prototype party-in-a-box. and half a dozen other, older messes.” Elliot grumbled that last bit, not intended for another ear. “They didn’t say we had to stay in the house until we were done.”
“So you left Ellen there to do all of it.”
“I called her on the way and she said there was something she had to deal with, first. Dunno what and she wouldn’t really say.”
“I see.”
“What is a party-in-a-box?” Ashley’s question was both sincere and remarkably obvious in answer.
“Honestly? Exactly what it sounds like,” Elliot snarked. “Turns a room into one big party, with neon lights and disco balls and all that.”
Mr. Verres, of course, exposited further. “The problem was that Tedd forgot to change the settings, and it lasted 30 days instead of 30 minutes. And it failed to take doors into account. Now the entirety of our house, and much of Elliot’s, is pastel pink and lit with blue disco balls. And that’s what they’re cleaning up.”
“...Ah.”
Suddenly the watch on Mr. Verres’ arm gave a little *beedly-boop* and Luke’s voice came out. “We found them! But you should hurry.”
He tapped it a bit further, to home in on the unknown location, and gave the direction of travel. And so they set forth, with destination in mind this time, and somewhat more urgency to their step.
---
Tedd and Grace had been cuddling to conserve heat next to the tree for quite some time, and Grace had even nodded off, before Tedd noticed Grace was looking just a little bit paler than usual. A quick glance to her hand confirmed - the bleeding hadn’t really stopped.
“Grace. Grace!”
She woke with a start. “Oh! Hey Tedd.” She smiled. “I’m good, don’t worry - we’ll be rescued soon. Help’s on the way. See?” And her eyes slid off to the woods behind him.
Tedd turned around to see Justin running up from behind, flanked by Nanase (who had a blanket wrapped around her like a cape) and Luke (with eyes tightly shut and saying something into his watch).
“You’re here! Thank goodness.”
Nanase took off the blanket she’d brought and brought it forth with a look of concern. “I brought this to help wait, while everyone else arrives.” Then she looked at Grace and her expression sank a few notches. “Carp, that hand’s worse than I thought.”
“I brought some bandages,” Justin offered, proffering a pack of regular band-aids as he continued. “And a bit of water to clean the wound with. Not enough gauze to properly wrap a hand, though.”
“Right, give me a hand,” replied Nanase, laying her blanket over Grace. “And Grace, give me your hand. I’ll see what I can do.”
Suddenly a *KRAK-A-THOOM* rung out from the treetops a hill or two over, and an angry, slightly singed hawk flew erratically towards the group, gliding jaggedly into the canopy just above where Grace and Tedd had rested. Another, which was somewhat bigger, flew much more gracefully into the branches nearby and started screeching at them.
“Susan?” Justin shouted over to the source of the bird’s flight. “We’re over here!”
Grace, meanwhile, had drifted her sight upwards to the raptors in the tree, and focused her antennae in that direction. “It’s not food! We’re not food! Stop trying to eat us and our things!”
The undamaged hawk paused a moment, focused both eyes directly on her, and shrieked three times, in staccato rhythm.
“We haven’t fed you! We won’t feed you! Just let us leave in peace, please.”
The response came swiftly. “KEE-EEEEE-ARR!”
Then the other bird responded, in a softer chirping tone. “Chvirk.”
“He’s right. Listen to him.”
“Grace,” Nanase interrupted. “Stop waving your hands around as I’m trying to bandage them.”
“Sorry,” said Grace, as the hawks above began chittering, screeching, and chirping at one another. She looked as if she was about to say something more, but the continuing conversation above seemed not to have any breaks in it - not even a space to get a single word in edgewise.
At length, though, it concluded, and they both looked directly at Grace, gave one screech in unison, and flew off, deeper into the woods.
“Well, that’s not good,” Grace said at length, as Nanase finished with the bandaging as best she could.
“What was that all about? …And what’s up with your hair?” Luke had finally stopped covering his eyes when the hawks began to screech at each other, out of curiosity and fear at what the sounds were he was hearing.
“...Magic stuff. I think they’re not going to attack us, but they seemed like they really wanted revenge on someone for something, so that’s worrisome. I hope the others are okay.”
“We’ll be fine,” said Diane, as everyone there turned to face her from the tree where the hawks had been. She was holding a glowing sword; Sarah was supporting Susan, who looked unsteady on her feet.
“Susan?!” Tedd and Justin both rushed up to look her up and down. “What happened?”
“Turns out I can’t really turn off feedback from Nase when these two keep psyching me out about how painful it might be,” she responded bitterly. “And it takes a lot more damage than you’d think to de-summon her, fun fact.”
“I said sorry,” mumbled Diane.
“Here, Susan, there’s enough space under the blanket for one more if we squeeze,” Grace offered. Susan, either too tired to really think about it or just not caring at this point, nodded and walked over, collapsing into a seated pose next to Grace, who draped the blanket over the both of them.
“I guess now we wait for the others,” was Justin’s final remark, as everyone else settled down, too.
---
Thankfully Mr. Verres, Elliot and Ashley ended up arriving without too much trouble. Elliot, having a vision enhancement spell with highlighting of important things, went to go look for the missing phones, and (after suggesting to Justin and Luke that they probably ought to go back to the store now) Mr. Verres went to heal Grace’s hand more thoroughly.
Ashley ducked out early, feeling like she hadn’t been as helpful as she could be (despite no one expecting her to single-handedly find Tedd and Grace). When she got home, she made sure to practice with Kevin extra-hard for at least a few days, until she felt better.
When he’d retrieved the phones (fortunately, not a time-consuming endeavor, since they weren’t that far off) Elliot said his goodbyes and flew off towards home - there was much which still needed to be fixed up and repaired before his parents arrived, and this hour-long rescue certainly hadn’t helped.
Ellen, of course, filled him in on the details with Charlie - making him quite glad that he had somehow found a convenient telephone booth to change back from Cheerleadra in before returning home. Explaining that whole mess to Charlie would have been a struggle and a half, at least.
Susan was doing significantly better after recuperating under the blanket for a bit, as had Nanase before her. That said, both quietly concurred that being attacked by a giant hawk was a viscerally unpleasant experience.
Diane and Sarah caught a ride home with Susan; neither would quite admit it, especially not to Susan, but they did feel a rather big part of having made Susan’s experience worse. It definitely did make for an awkward ride, especially after Susan tried to crack a joke or two about the whole affair.
Nanase lingered a bit at the comic store with Justin and Luke, though she didn’t stay too long. Mostly, she wanted to be able to answer that she’d been hanging out with Justin, when her mother inevitably asked where she’d been; she had an uncanny ability to sense lies.
Thankfully, the store had barely been busy enough to warrant even George manning the register; Thursdays which weren’t the day before a tournament were very slow at the best of times. It did mean that George was able to press them for details with few distractions, though the two of them did what they felt to be a good job at keeping everyone’s secrets. All it took was a lot of care and focus while answering George’s interrogations.
Which meant that all three of them missed the car that pulled up after the others had left. Its two occupants got out and began walking towards the woods everyone else had just left.
“You’re sure you’ve actually tamed them?” Larry’s hesitancy was nearly tangible.
“I’ve graduated not one, not two, but three falconry courses,” Rich replied smugly. “I like to think that makes me something of an expert. Plus this will help,” he said, hefting a small black lunchbox about the size of his hand.
“Internet courses.”
“Look, I got them to literally eat out of my hand last time. You really can just follow guides for this.”
“Okaaaay…”
Right as they reached the edge of the forest, Rich took a whistle out of his pocket and blew on it - it made no sound that Larry could hear, but within moments there was a rustling in the canopy that slowly grew closer. And as he’d looked away, Rich had taken some sausages out of the lunchbox, and held them out in his open palm as an offering.
“KEE-EEEEE-ARR!”
Ten seconds later, the both of them were scrambling for their car, harried by two extremely pissed hawks, with sausages and lunchbox left far behind.