Amylia and I were in the cafeteria where several dozen students lay slumped over in their seats or scattered across the floor unconscious. We crouched down behind the serving counter, trying not to touch the lunch lady who was snoring beside us.

“What can we do against eight sorcerers?” I asked Amylia nervously.

“I recognize several of them as former students,” she answered grimly. “I know for certain that two of them have dangerous talents but aren’t actually sorcerers. Gregor and Marcus are the most dangerous so don’t confront either of them unless you have no choice. If we catch the others while they are separated and by surprise, we should be able to take them without much problem.”

“Okay,” responded with a weak smile, then joked, “So this should be a piece of cake then.”

“Your duel experience will help you with what we are facing,” Amylia told me with a grim expression. “But remember, this is not a dueling circle and you have none of the safeguards. If they hit you with a lethal spell, you will die.” She gave me a worried look. “Please be careful. I couldn’t live with myself if I allowed anything to happen to you.”

A few seconds later, we got up and began to make our way out of the cafeteria in hopes that we could ambush one or two of the invaders before they found us again. Then I froze, exclaiming, “It’s Gayle…” I rushed over to my friend’s body which was spread out on the floor.

Amylia stared at her for a moment before saying, “They don’t seem to want to hurt most of the students, but if Marcus finds Gayle unable to defend herself, he would likely kill her on the spot.” Then she reached into her pouch, pulling out a crystal. “I only have two copies of this spell cast so have to be careful on whom I use them on. I believe Gayle is a good choice.” And with that, she activated her token.

A moment later, Gayle began to stir and opened her eyes. She up and looked around with a confused and somewhat shocked expression.

“The Academy was attacked,” I explained quickly, before she could even ask. “They used some kind of powerful sleeping spell to knock everyone out…”

“Shit,” Gayle exclaimed, getting back to her feet. “That sounds bad…”

“They’re still on campus,” Amylia told her grimly. “Eight of them. Your power and fighting experience should be quite useful in stopping the invaders.”

Gayle nodded at that and said, “Just point me at them.”

Amylia hesitated a moment before putting a hand on Gayle’s shoulder. “You should know. Marcus is one of them.”

“What?” Gayle exclaimed with a look of anger. “That bastard is back? He made my life a living hell…” Then she gave Amylia a steady look and said, “I thought he was banned from the Academy.”

“He is,” Amylia agreed with a cold anger of her own. “Marcus is unable to pass through any of the gates that lead here. Unfortunately…they found another way to come.”

Gayle stood there for a moment before saying, “If I’m going to fight Marcus again, I need to get ready.” She started walking to the side entrance, calling back “I’ll catch up with you guys again soon.”

“Where’s she going?” I blurted out, confused at the fact that we’d just woken Gayle only to have her wander off on her own.

“She’s getting ready,” Amylia responded with a faint smile. “Forget about her for now. We need to focus on our own parts.”

We stepped out of the cafeteria and could see several of the invaders still wandering about, grabbing the teachers and dragging them away from the students. It was obvious that they were separating the teachers from the students, perhaps to deal with them more permanently.

Amylia glared at one of the attackers who was on his own and told me, “I’ve got this one. Watch my back in case any others arrive.” And with that, she went straight towards the man, activating one of her tokens before calling out, “Stuart Esppy... You make me ashamed to have given you a passing grade…”

A moment later, Amylia was locked in a duel with a man who appeared to be a former student, though there was no duel circle or safety features. I gulped as I watched, fascinated and worried at the same time. One slip could result in Amylia becoming a pile of burnt cinders. It was all I could do not to go charging in to help her. Unfortunately, if I did that, I’d probably distract her and get in the way which was the last thing she needed.

Then I heard a scream from a short distance away. “That’s Monica,” I exclaimed.

“Go,” Amylia yelled back at m. “I’ll be fine here…”

I nodded, then turned and ran towards the sound of the scream. I soon found Teressa and Monica trying to fight off one of the invaders…Tyler. Teressa was on the ground, most of her body below the neck wrapped up in bandages nearly like a mummy. This prevented her from being able to reach any of her tokens.

“You leave her alone,” Monica screamed, swinging her fists frantically at the naked Tyler.

Tyler punched Monica who was thrown back, then he started looking at the ground, probably for the tokens he’d dropped when Monica destroyed his clothes. He looked pissed, so there was no doubt that Monica and Teressa were both in serious danger.

“Why are you trying to help me?” Teressa yelled at Monica with a look of terror on her face.

“You’ve been acting like a total bitch lately,” Monica responded, getting to her feet and wiping at her bloody nose. “But you’re still my friend.” And with that, she launched herself at Tyler again.

“Invoke,” Tyler cried out, having managed to get one of his tokens. Monica was suddenly thrown back by what looked like a powerful blast of air. Tyler smirked and held up his token pouch and reached inside.

“My arm,” Monica cried out in pain, sitting up on the ground and holding her shoulder.

“Engage,” I yelled, releasing a spell on Tyler while I rushed in to help. My attempt to turn Tyler into a frog fizzled out with a flash of light as it hit him, revealing that he’d protected himself with some sort of shield spell.

“You,” Tyler and Teressa both exclaimed at once.

Tyler launched an attack on me and I dove to the side to avoid it, but unfortunately, it was a wide burst of energy that hit me anyway. The spell shield that I’d activated earlier was still active, but just barely. The second shield had worn off on its own when I went too long without using it and had triggered the third and final shield. If I’d waited just another minute, that would have worn off as well. Instead, it saved me from Tyler’s attack before winking out of existence.

“Frak,” I exclaimed, thankful to have survived but annoyed since I’d only made one of those shield spell chains and didn’t have another on me.

I launched another attack at Tyler but he blocked it with a glowing blue disk that appeared in front of him. He glared at me with a cold fury and demand, “What did you to do me? I’ve lost all interest in my fiancé Rebecca…and every other woman.”

“So that’s why she was so pissed at me,” I responded with a smirk. “Well, you’ll never be interested in a girl…or anyone else for the rest of your life.”

Tyler and I both launched simultaneous attacks on each other but the magics seemed to collide in mid-air and exploded, sending both of us back. I quickly scrambled back to my feet, desperately trying to think of something I could use to take him down fast. This wasn’t like in the dueling circle where the audience wanted us to carry on and put on a good show. This was life or death, and the faster I ended this the less likely I was to die.

Suddenly, the ground around me burst into flames but Tyler hadn’t activated a token. I quickly looked around, seeing that I was now in a ring of fire, with flames that went up over my head. But in spite of that, I could see through it enough to see that Tyler was no longer alone. Rebecca and one of the other invaders had joined him. It was one of those two who’d used this spell on me.

“Now you’ll die painfully for what you did,” Rebecca announced hatefully. “You’ll burn to death, monster.”

I looked around in fear, growing even more terrified when I realized that the ring of flames was slowly starting to shrink. Rebecca, Tyler, and their other friend just stood back and smirking.

In desperation, I pulled out one of my tokens, one with a spell to summon a large amount of water. I activated it and blasted the flaming wall in order to put the fire out, but absolutely nothing happened. The flaming ring continued to burn and shrink.

“What are you doing?” Monica screamed out. “You can’t murder someone like this…”

“She’s not a person,” Tyler pointed out quickly. “She’s a monster. You’d remember that if they hadn’t charmed your mind. Marcus will be disappointed that you sided with this THING, even if you are under their influence. Don’t worry though. Once we have everything under control, we’ll take care of that and you can rejoin us.”

“What the hell is going on?” Teressa demanded, obviously terrified.

“These guys hate Were,” I answered, trying to keep my voice steady in spite of the fear. “They kidnapped me and a bunch of distant relatives so they could kill for some experiment.” Then I added with more than a little bitterness, “I thought you’d be sympathetic to them.”

“These are the guys I ran away from,” Monica answered, looking just as scared. “They…they’re fanatics.”

Rebecca kicked Monica and spat out, “I don’t care if you are Marcus’ sister or if you are under their control. If you don’t shut up, I’m going to knock you into next week.”

For a moment, Rebecca looked like she was going to keep kicking Monica anyway, but then I heard Gregor’s voice yelling. “Get to the hall of doors. We need to guard the gates to ensure no reinforcements come.”

“Damn,” Tyler muttered. Then he told his companions, “I’ll stay here and watch these kids. You two go.”

Rebecca and the other man ran off to the hall of doors, leaving us with a naked and very angry Tyler. Teressa was still tied up, I was trapped in a shrinking ring of flames, and Monica was injured and nearly powerless against his spells. I clenched my fists in frustration and fear, not seeing anything that I could do at the moment.

Then I saw someone else coming towards us with one of those white featureless face masks. I gulped at the sight of him, until I noticed his clothes. When he got closer, Todd suddenly tore off the mask and tackled Tyler, knocking the sorcerer to the ground.

“What the hell are you doing to my girlfriend?” Todd screamed, knocking the bag of tokens out of Tyler’s hand before he could use any of them. Then he followed that up with a punch to Tyler’s face and a knee to his stomach.

I’d always thought of Todd as having the body of a movie star and the soul of a geek. I had never once thought of him as having even the potential to be a bad-ass. But as I watched Todd beating the crap out of Tyler with his bare hands, that definitely changed.

Todd knocked Tyler back into the flaming ring. Tyler screamed as his back, shoulder, and arm all started to blacken and blister. Then he collapsed to the ground, no longer moving.

“That was awesome,” I blurted out, forgetting my terror for a moment. Only a moment. “Now get me the frak out of here!”

“I don’t know how,” Todd blurted out with a look of fear on his face.

I grimaced, feeling growing physical discomfort as the heat was getting closer and closer. I felt hot already and knew that I wouldn’t last much longer at all. I’d never been this scared before in my life and tears ran down my cheeks.

“ERIN,” Amylia’s voice cried out.

I looked to see Amylia running towards me with Sylvie and Eve beside her. Before Amylia even got close, she unleashed a token that blasted the ring of fire with a powerful wave of water, but it had no more effect than when I’d tried it myself. She immediately followed that up with another spell which was similarly ineffective.

Sylvie tried a spell of her own against the fire wall, and when it didn’t work, she went to help Monica. Eve went to work trying to get Teressa out of the bandages that had her tied up, not seeming all that thrilled about it.

“It’s a barrier against magic as well,” Amylia said grimly, looking more than a little worried. Then she bent down and grabbed the unmoving Tyler and screamed at him, “How do I get my granddaughter out of there?”

“Granddaughter?” Sylvie blurted out while Todd, Eve, and Teressa all stared in surprise and confusion.

“She’s my great plus grandma,” I said, trying hard to distract myself from the terror I felt. “On my dad’s side.”

“But your dad’s a Were,” Sylvie responded, looking nearly as worried as I felt.

“As am I,” Amylia commented, earning more gasps as she reaching into her pouch and pulling out a large red crystal that was the size of a softball.

“The failsafe,” I blurted out in immediate recognition.

“I created this to rescue my descendants if Gregor ever took them again,” Amylia said, looking me in the eyes with an extremely worried look in her own. “I never expected to need it so soon…or that I would use it like this.” She paused for a moment before saying, “But it’s the only way I know to get you out of there in time. I just hope they forgive me…” And with that, she stated, “Invoke.”

The ring of flames was now so close that I could barely twitch without touching the fire. My skin already felt sunburned from the heat and I knew that I was dead in less than half a minute. But as soon as Amylia activated her token, there was a strange tingling through my body, followed by a red glow around me. Suddenly, I was no longer surrounded by fire but standing beside Amylia.

“Erin,” Amylia cried out in relief, grabbing me in a hug before I could collapse to the ground.

Todd rushed over and grabbed me the moment Amylia let go. “You’re all right…”

“You were such a stud,” I told him with a grin, giving him a kiss and adding, “A regular Captain Kirk.”

Then I noticed several glowing red bubbles floating in the air around us, something that the others hadn’t missed as Sylvie, Eve, Monica, and Teressa were all staring at them. One of the bubbles popped and suddenly Traci was standing there with a bewildered look on her face.

“Where the hell am I?” Traci demanded as she looked around with a near frantic expression. Then she saw Amylia and me and seemed to relax slightly. “What’s going on?”

Another bubble popped and Trey stood there with a similar expression to Traci’s. Darek, Jake, and Kaylie appeared as well. They all looked around in confusion and a little fear.

“The spell I cast uses a blood resonance to link to my decedents,” Amylia said almost apologetically. “It finds the ones with enough magic to be mythics…the ones I feel an emotional bond to…and it brings them to me.” She looked around at the confused Weres who had just appeared. “The spell was designed to rescue you from danger should it ever be necessary again, but instead, I brought you here to a dangerous place instead.” She bowed her head slightly and added, “I deeply regret putting any of you in this dangerous situation, but I fear that this was the only way to save Erin from certain death.”

“Who…who are these people?” Teressa demanded with a frantic look in her eyes. She was now free of the bandages and gestured to the new arrivals.

Amylia stood up straighter, and in a proud voice announced, “These are my grandchildren.”