My Super-powered Diary Chapter 37 Nightfall By Amethyst When Maddock Ainsley gets involved in a rescue operation with his unit things go horribly wrong and his life is forever changed. Can the newly minted Merida cope with being a girl and a teenage super hero?

I became instantly alert when the bell rang announcing that Khestrid had spotted the Tainted emerging from the cave. Powerful winds whipped up and bolts of lightning assaulted the Tainted emerging from the cave as Khestrid tried to make them believe that she was trying to protect us, though soon both died down since the nature spirit was still trying to get her strength back after her long imprisonment. The first of the traps went off soon after, earning a quickly muffled shout of pain so I decided that they were close enough to put phase two of my plan into action. I concentrated on forming a protective dome around our camp and smiled as the area was bathed in the ruddy light of the large construct. “A’right e’eryone time tae ge’ down tae business, aye?” I said as I got to my feet, adjusted Peaches into the baby sling, and activated my force field. “E’eryone ken wot yuir jobs are s’posed tae be?”

The others quickly nodded as they all stood up and we got in position so that none of our backs were uncovered in case they decided to launch a physical offensive once my dome was down. After a quick look around, I discovered that there were less than twenty of the human-like creatures approaching us, plus another two smaller pixie-ish creatures that I could see. They hadn’t sent out their full strength. Khestrid had indicated earlier that the Tainted we faced numbered somewhere between sixty and eighty in total, so this was probably only roughly a third of their full strength? Ground troops maybe? Was she holding her mages back for now or was it a mix of the two?

I could only think of two reasons for the Dark Queen to hold back like this. Either she thought us easy prey or she was probing our defenses, and possibly trying to wear us down, while she figured out if we were dangerous or not. Either way, we needed to hit them hard and let them know that not only were we dangerous, but that we had no issues at all with taking them down. A second Tainted fell to the traps as they approached. Lindsey had been focusing her gaze on him and now that he was down she quickly focussed on another.

The Tainted approached my dome uncertainly, not sure what to make of it at first. They were all buck naked and looked vaguely like humans, but with pointed ears, an unhealthy-looking paleness to their skin, black hair, and eyes that seemed to be all pupil, with no sign of iris or white. One of them reached up to scratch his chin with a black clawed finger and then smiled at us, displaying a mouth filled with razor sharp teeth. “If the Pixie dropsss her shielding ssspell and comesss with usss we will let you children go. Wouldn’t you like to go home to your parentsss and just forget about all of thisss? Her magick has trapped you here and brought you to usss. It’sss her fault, ssso why don’t you just leave her here with usss and go home to enjoy whatever sssmall ssspeck of life remainsss in you?”

“My name is Fawn, and I don’t want anything to do with you. I’m not going anywhere with you and I’m not going to let you hurt my friends,” the Fairy said from where she fluttered above my right shoulder with her arms crossed, glaring at the Tainted outside the dome.

It was an obvious lie anyway. They had no intention of letting us go, no matter what happened here. They thought that we were little more than children and that Fawn was a mage of some sort. “Yeah right, like we’re going to trust you,” Michelle spat.

He looked us all over intently, but then ignored Michelle and focussed his attention on me and Lindsey as he smiled once again. “I sssense the ssspark of magick in the two of you. And you, you have a familiar, I can sssense itsss bond with you. Are you this Pixie’sss apprenticesss? Queen Minira is a very powerful sssorceresss, she could teach you magicksss that you could only dream of. Think of it, all your wishesss fulfilled. Lady Fawn, you could learn ssso much from Her Majesssty.”

“The only thing that you’re interested in me learning is how to become like one of you and I’m not going to do that. Besides I’m already going to school,” Fawn retorted.

Lindsey let out a very unladylike snort of disgust. “Yeah, puh-leeze. Even if you did keep us and Fawn alive for our magic, you’d just kill our girlfriends. Not gonna happen, asshole.”

I nodded in agreement and quickly added, “I think tha’ I’m goin’ tae ‘ave tae agree wi’ ma friends. Ya dinnae seem the trus’worthy type, ‘sides it’s no’ Fawn tha’s makin’ the shield, it’s me.”

The eyes of the Tainted widened and he just stared at me for a moment before sputtering, “But you’re jussst a child, how…”

“Fook you, tha’s ‘ow,” I snapped back, sticking out my tongue and giving him a raspberry and the one finger salute for good measure. “Yuir more’n welcome tae try an’ break it down though, if’n ya think tha’ ya kin.” After the way their attack spells had bounced of my force field and the bubbles that I had placed on the others, Lindsey had surmised that my energy could block or absorb direct magical attacks, but we would be in trouble if anyone thought to use magic to attack indirectly and contain or trap me or my constructs. I needed to get them mad enough to attack the dome directly. If I kept it stable then it would just absorb or deflect the attacks, and if I didn’t then everyone inside would be safe when it went boom.

I put a strained expression on my face as he and a few others began attacking the dome. It was a large construct, but it wasn’t moving and was a fairly easy shape to maintain so, since it was the only construct I was handling at the moment, it wasn’t near as hard to maintain as I was making it appear. More of them closed in and began attacking in earnest, close to a dozen of them within twenty feet of the dome and pounding on it with magic or their bare hands. I placed a second dome over the first trapping them between the two, concentrating now on keeping the outer one stable as I fed more energy into the one surrounding me and my friends.

I didn’t have time to feed enough into the dome to make it too wildly unstable before their attacks made it blow, but it was enough to do the job. The explosive energy rushed outward tearing into the Tainted and hurling their scorched and bloodied remains back toward the outer dome that I had erected to contain the blast and prevent too much destruction to the local landscape. Okay, I’ll admit it. That took a little bit out of me, but I shook it off as I let the second dome dissipate and muttered, “A’right Hana, its yuir turn.”

“You got it Merida,” she replied with a grim nod before letting loose. Twin blasts of bright golden light erupted from her eyes, firing rapidly and hitting any Tainted between her and the cave with enough force to send them flying, screaming in pain until they hit the ground or the side of the rocky outcropping that the cave was in. They weren’t the only ones screaming in pain though. Hana had used all of the energy she had left for that attack and she was changing back into Hiro. Having been through that kind of painful transformation myself before I winced in sympathy, but we still had problems to deal with.

Three small pixie creatures had managed to stay outside my dome and avoid Hana’s attack and they were flying above us and casting spells, sickly green bolts of energy that I didn’t like the look of at all. I managed to cover Hana/Hiro with a bubble, but before I could cover the others Michelle threw herself in front of Lindsey, taking a hit meant for her. Michelle’s scaly skin seemed to darken before the spell even hit her, turning black with a slightly metallic sheen to it. Fawn though, flew straight at the three enemy combatants. “I’ve got this Merida, try to cover Lindsey and Michelle too,” the Fairy shouted back at me.

“Don’t worry about me Merida. Whatever that was, it didn’t hurt me at all,” Michelle countered. “Keep Lindsey and Hana covered and maybe we should make sure that those guys Hana hit stay down.”

“I… I’m okay,” Hana, or rather Hiro said with a groan. “It hurts like a bitch, but at least it doesn’t take long. Let’s go take care of those guys Merida.”

Fawn had already flown straight at the three dark pixies, but with their small size and being fairly high it was hard to really see any of them other than the red glow of Dawn’s force field covered form zipping all over the place. From the look of it, she was leading them on a good chase for now to keep them off the rest of us. We didn’t bother looking at the Tainted that I had taken down between my two domes, there wasn’t enough left of them to be a problem and it was pretty stomach-turning to look at, even in the dark. Instead, we took the opportunity to make our way over to check on the Tainted that Hana had blasted. They were down for the count, battered, broken, and badly burned from the blast, and though it looked like they were alive they were unconscious and likely wouldn’t be moving again under their own power again anytime soon.

“Damn, my eye beams usually hit like a truck, but they’ve never burned anybody like that before,” Hiro muttered.

“Well Khestrid did say that they were weak to light, and something called cold iron” Michelle pointed out.

Fawn streaked back toward us still fighting the three dark pixies. With her strength and speed enhanced by her force field she was easily outclassing them physically, while their spells and other attacks couldn’t seem to touch her. Two of the nasty little things were grabbing at her from behind, trying to strangle her and disable her wings, but with the force field active they couldn’t do either and she didn’t need her wings to fly. The third, the only male of the group had stopped and was beginning to chant as it cast another spell at her, but fawn never let him finish the spell, rushing toward where he was fluttering above us to deck him in the face and then throw him down toward us.

Michelle snatched the tiny little monstrosity up in her hand, in an attempt to keep it away from Fawn so she could handle the other two, and the second that she grabbed him he started screaming, “Aaiiieee it burnsss!! They have cold iron!”

“Whoa, so that’s what I turned into,” Michelle said in surprise as she tossed him to the ground. His black moth wings were half burned away and he had burns all over his body. All that from less than a minute of contact. “We’ll have to save as much of this as we can when I shed it, it could be useful if need to fight these guys again.”

“Aye, an’ hopefully ya dinnae shed it afore we finish dealin’ wi’ the ones ‘ere,” I agreed as I watched Fawn elbow one to the dark pixies on her back in the gut, dislodging her. Then my Fairy friend quickly turned around to grab her opponent by the arms and start spinning like a top as fast as she could. Soon the one on her back couldn’t hold on any longer and was sent flying while she let go of the other one, sending her flying as well before slowing her spin to come to a stop. Michelle jumped up to grab one of them in her hand before tossing the screaming and burned creature to the ground while I formed a really large fly swatter construct and delivered a solid smack to the other. “Take tha’ ya wee menace,” I muttered as I embedded it into the sand.

Fawn fluttered down giggling slightly, probably from the head rush and dizziness, though she did manage to land safely on my shoulder. “What do we do now Merida?” she asked in concern after looking around us at all the figures lying still in the sand.

“We go an’ take down tha’ bloody Queen Minira an’ the res’ o’ them. I’m no’ goin’ tae let ‘er ge’ away wit’ ruinin’ our first date. An’ we cannae le’ her try tae find the Chaos Gate,” I told her and the others with determination.

We made our way over to the cave, watching carefully for more Tainted in hiding in the shadows as I kept a bubble over Lindsey and we were nearly there when the dark pixie that I had swatted into the sand suddenly zipped after us and called out, “Merida! It’s me, Khestrid! You need to place one of your shields over all of us right now!”

I didn’t argue, I just dropped the bubble around Lindsey and quickly erected another dome, just big enough to fit me and me and the others. The spirit had taken over Lindsey when she was unconscious so it didn’t surprise me that she could do it with the pixie as well and her tone had been urgent. “Would ya care tae explain jus’ wot I’m protectin’ us from.”

“Minira is casting a number of large spells, she has already removed her barrier from this place and she means to cleanse this beach of all living things, both you and those who have failed her,” the Valkyrie spirit explained. I had barely gotten the dome in place when a firestorm washed over the beach, turning everything not protected to ash and causing the Tainted who had regained consciousness to scream.

We sat there trying to drown out the screams by talking. I wanted to go kick Minira’s ass but I couldn’t risk dropping that dome for a single second. So I sat there snuggling Hiro and Peaches while Lindsey and Miichelle held hands and we talked to the possessed Tainted pixie. Since the pixie was both injured and unconscious it was fairly easy for Khestrid to keep her hold on it and she could access the creature’s memories and magic. The former didn’t tell the spirit much that she didn’t know already though and nothing about what Minira had planned to do if this location was compromised beyond killing the people who had done the compromising.

“I do think I can do something for you though Fawn,” Khestrid offered my Fairy friend after sharing what little information she had gleaned. “While I still have control of this Tainted I could give you its clan mark. Fae can share their clan mark once every fifty years with someone not born Fae and becoming Tainted doesn’t change that. It would allow you to take on a human form and since you’re already a creature of magic, I think that it would greatly increase the potency of your inherent abilities while in your natural form.”

“But I like being a Fairy, I’m not sure I’d like being human,” Fawn replied with a concerned look on her face.

“You would not be human, you would still be a Fairy, only able to become human when the need arises and change back just as easily. I think that this would be useful for you living in the human world. If you wish to do this, we must do so while I am still in control of this body with access to the proper memories. Please, think of it as payment for the favor that I wish to ask of you and your friends.” The dark pixie’s eyes implored us.

“It could be useful fer school,” I thought aloud, “I’ve been wonderin’ ‘ow yuir goin’ tae carry yuir books an’ other things aroun’. Ya ne’er ken when havin’ an extra ability might come in handy tae. Wot’s this favor though?”

“My time as Minira’s captive has greatly weakened me. I saw in Lindsey’s memories that you are all close to a young Contractor Medium named Jorydn. I need a long term host while I regain my strength and I would like to meet her and see if she is agreeable to forming a contract.”

“You don’t need to offer us payment for us to introduce you, and Jordyn has been wanting to find a spirit to from a contract with since she found out that she’s a Contractor like her mom. With her looks and no real powers to back her up she has all the drawbacks of being a mutant but none of the benefits,” Lindsey pointed out.

“Thank you,” she said, giving a smile that looked a little terrifying on the Tainted’s tiny face. “Still, I would like to do this for Fawn if she would like, while I still have the ability to do so.

Fawn looked at me uncertainly and then I realized why she was hesitating. It wasn’t that she didn’t want it, she was afraid of how it might effect our friendship. So I gave her an encouraging smile and said, “Dinnae worry aboot a thing Fawn, this changes nothin’. Yuir still goin’ tae be ma bes’ friend no matter wot, an’ maybe we kin do e’en more t’gether this way. ‘Sides, yuir goin’ tae probably be spendin’ mos’ o’ yuir time as a Fairy in our dorm room and a’ home anyway.”

The Fairy returned my smile and breathed a sigh of relief, “Okay, let’s do it.”

Khestrid had Fawn choose where she wanted the clan mark to go and then using one of the claws of the pixie she was possessing to draw blood from both her hand and from just above Fawn’s right ankle where she would be placing the mark. Then she chanted something while her holding the bleeding hand to Fawn’s bleeding ankle and when she pulled her hand away and wiped off the blood there was now a tiny brown tattoo there. At Fawn’s size it was a bit hard to make out with the ruddy light of my dome construct, but she said it looked like a Fairy.

“I would advise not trying it while wearing clothes, but when you wish to change form, you need only focus your thoughts on the mark and its magic,” Khestrid told her now that the deed was done.

It was still another hour before the flames died down completely and Khestrid spent the remainder of that time teaching Lindsey a fairly basic spell that she could use to restrain the Tainted pixie before she could wake up and shake Khestrid’s control. Soon our captive was bound in stone so that she wouldn’t be able to move a muscle, with only an opening big enough for her to breathe, and possibly scream at us when she awoke. Khestrid told us that she believed that it would prevent her from casting spells before relinquishing her hold on the unconscious body.

When the flames finally dissipated Fawn dusted Michelle and Lindsey and we flew over the now hot sand to the cave entrance, but when we arrived there was some sort of opaque green barrier in place over the cave mouth and a Tainted woman in a black gown behind it glaring at us balefully. “Ssso, you are ssstill alive. You children have ruined everything,” she spat at us.

“Aye aye, we ge’ it already, ya would ‘ave gotten away wit’ it if’n it ‘ad no’ ‘ave been fer us meddlin’ kids an’ our Fairy. Now ya go’ two choices ‘ere lady. First, ya kin drop tha’ field an’ surrender. Or number two I bring tha’ cave down aroun’ ya an’ any o’ yuir people still in there wit’ ya.”

The dark queen snorted dismissively. “Do you really think that you have me beaten child? Sssuch arrogance. There is no point in my ssstaying here any longer. Our magicksss can not penetrate your barriers or effect the shapeshifter while she isss in that form and you are powerful, for children. I will find a new place to…”

“I guess that this barrier shouldn’t be a problem for me then,” Michelle interrupted her as she threw herself through the barrier and attempted to tackle the fallen Fae, only to pass right through her as well.

The image of the Tainted woman flickered back to life after vanishing and gave Michelle a dismissive look. “Foolish child, did you really think that I have lived thisss long by ssstaying where I might be in danger. Thisss is merely a magical projection. I have already transssported myssself and my remaining people to another location, where I can continue my sssearch without your interference. I will remember you well children and once that power is mine, you will either bow before me or sssuffer at my handsss. Enjoy your freedom while it lassstsss, children.”

The image vanished and I cursed, “Bloody ‘ell!”

“Don’t worry Merida, we’ll get her,” Hiro said, wrapping his arms around me. “We know what she’s after and maybe Dr. Edwards will be able to get something useful from our captive. We’re not leaving here empty handed.”

Luckily Minira had kept her conflagration contained to the beach itself and none of the surrounding forest had caught fire, because I was too damned tired to fight a fire on top of everything else, my constant constructs use had really drained me. “We should be leavin’ though,” I said with a sigh. “Any satellites o’erhead probably picked up on the heat from tha’ fire an’ I dinnae wan’ tae be ‘ere when people come investigatin’. Let’s see wot survived the fire an’ pack up. We’ll need tae call Dr. Edwards an’ our parents tae.”

My tent and the sleeping bags for Fawn and I survived, they were after all made from Mithrilex, but the others’ sleeping gear was burnt to ashes. Luckily we had placed most of our gear inside my portable portal so it was all safely stowed away and the portal was all stuffed inside itself and as small as possible, safely tucked inside one of the pockets of my costume. Once I had extracted it we all had a quick meal of things that we could eat cold and then took apart my tent, and placed it and the sleeping bags inside the portal before folding it up again for the trip home.

It was nearly midnight when I pulled out my phone and called Dr. Edwards. She did not sound happy to answer the phone at that hour, but she was glad that we were safe and that we now had some information on who was after the Chaos Gate. She was even happier that we had managed to capture one of the Tainted alive. She wanted us to come straight to the school to report to her in person and we could sleep in our dorm rooms that night. She would phone our parents and let them know what was going on. So, once Fawn had Michelle and Lindsey dusted again, we all rose into the night sky with our captive in hand and Khestrid an unseen presence at our side as we headed back to Costa Verde.