25

The foyer was very wide with torches lining the stone walls, though none of them seemed to be lit. Nevertheless the hallway was well illuminated, showing off the tapestries and statues that lined either side. What wasn't shown however was a way out of the room.

Before anyone could say anything though, a soft glow of yellow light appeared in front of us. It formed the shape of the man we had been sent to find, though far more yellow and glowing. "You have the Key, but the Tower does not recognize you," The image of Kent Nelson said, it's voice slightly gravely. "Who are you and what is your purpose here?"

Kori stepped in front of the group. "Spirit of the Tower, we were tasked by Red Tornado to find Kent Nelson. He has been missing for some time." She said. Red Tornado had mentioned that the Tower was 'active', but I hadn't realized it could talk. I think he would have mentioned if the building was fully aware, but either way we should probably be as straightforward as possible with it. The android had mentioned something about pits of lava…

The image was still for a moment before it said "Kent is not in the Tower at this moment. He has been absent from these grounds for some time."

"We had assumed this was the case," Kaldur said. "Can you tell us where he is now? Or what he was doing last before he disappeared?"

"Kent did not confide in the Tower as to the purpose of his last excursion. However, 24 days ago his cane materialized in the Tower without him, indicating that he either sent it back or that it was separated from him."

"Damn, you don't think he might have…" Wally trailed off as he noticed the looks we were giving him. "What, he's over a century old! I can't have been the only one thinking it."

Unperturbed by Wally's implication, the image said. "The Tower would know if the current owner of the Helmet of Fate had passed. Kent Nelson is still alive, but his whereabouts are unknown."

Behind the magical hologram the wall opened, bricks folding back out of sight to let a soft light into the hallway. "However, if you are serious about finding him, his cane is capable of locating him via his astral signature. While actions are limited, the Tower can show you the way to where it is being kept."

The wall finished opening to reveal a massive chamber that must have larger than the tower we were inside of considering I couldn't see the walls. The entire space was filled with stairways and platforms, connecting at impossible angles and fading off into the hazy yellow distance. A few of the landings had more intricate architecture with arcs and pillars and doors to nowhere that blended and twisted in on themselves. I had seen some pretty wild stuff since I had first arrived in this universe, but I was still seeing new things that filled me with a sense of wonder.

…And yet the first thing I said after taking that in was "Is every magical tower required to have an M.C. Escher room? I mean, it's really impressive, but this can't possibly be the most practical."

"If you know of a better way of maintaining a dimensional hub between multiple sub-dimensions with different Euclidian structures while keeping it navigable and non-hostile to human life, the Tower would love to know about it."

Apparently 'the Tower' was aware enough to get snippy.

The apparition gestured, pointing at a particular doorway some distance away. "Through that gate you will find the cane, and with the cane you shall locate Kent."

Kori inclined her head. "Thank you, Spirit of the Tower. We are also here to insure the safety of the Helmet of Fate. Could you show us the way to it as well?"

"The Helmet is here, but only the current owner can open that way. You must find Kent Nelson first."

Superboy grunted. "Kinda defeats the point of keeping it safe until we find the guy."

"Maybe, but this place looks pretty secure to me." I said. "And if the cane works as advertised, we should be finding the man shortly. What are the odds that-" I stopped, my mouth snapping shut.

Artemis slowly turned her head towards me, her mouth pressed in a thin line. I stared back at her for a moment before I said "I didn't finish saying it, it doesn't count."

She opened her mouth to respond, but at that moment the apparition's eyes snapped to a spot just behind us, and at the same time my blindsight picked up a sort of ripple close to the floor. An instant later a small form shot through our legs before stopping at the top of the closest stairway (I did not jump in surprise when this happened). It was an orange tabby cat, though its ears were unusually pointed and its eyes glowed a malevolent red. It hissed as us before it bolted through the nearest portal and vanished.

The image of Kent Nelson turned to us. "Did you bring that creature here?"

Kori shook her head. "No, we have never seen it before. What was it?"

After a long moment of looking at us the image said "You seem to be speaking truthfully… It is likely this is an intrusion by an outside force, by one seeking to claim the Helmet for themselves. The scent of chaos magic was thick on that creature. It was likely a familiar."

Artemis looked back at me. "I'm blaming you for this."

"Oh quiet you." I grumbled before faced the image. "How did it get in? I closed the door." I was also concerned at how my blindsight completely failed to see it until the last instant, but I suspected that answer would be some variation on 'magic'.

"Unknown, though perhaps it slipped through your legs."

"Well, alright, but it's just a cat though," Wally said. "You can handle the fur ball, right?"

"On its own, yes. However, if it is a familiar of another mage it is possible that it could be used as a sort of beacon to breach the defenses of the Tower. While it cannot summon its master into the tower proper, it may find one of the tower's many… alternate entrances and open the way from there. I would advise that you find it quickly, there is no telling how soon it will find a connecting reality that it can access."

I sighed. "For once I had hoped that one of these outings wouldn't result in an impromptu mission."

"Perhaps someday." Kori said before she turned to look at all of us, her demeanor shifting to something more serious. "We split into teams, Balanced-Two. Team Alpha will hunt down the intruder and prevent them from making a breaching point. Team Beta will search for the cane and if possible Nelson."

We nodded as we split into groups. It had come up in training that for our team size it would be useful to form sub-teams when the situation required it, and we had worked out a few compositions. Balanced-Two put Kori and Kaldur at the head of each four man squad, with myself, M'gann, and Artemis under Kori, and Robin, Superboy and Wally under Kaldur. Robin wasn't there, but Kaldur's team was less likely to need the extra man.

"How come Jacob gets to go with the girls?" Wally muttered before a thought occurred to him. "Wait, if you guys are chasing someone, don't you want the fastest guy on the team with you?"

Kori hesitated for a moment before she nodded. "Good point. Artemis, switch with Wally." She looked at M'gann. "I do not know how well any of our communication will hold up inside the Tower, so we should use every method we have. Link us up."

M'gann nodded and closed her eyes. A moment later she opened them and looked around, the rest of the team nodding. I doubted the link would hold up when we started jumping through portals, but it was worth a shot.

Starfire floated into the air. "Right. Team, go!"

We bolted up the stairs and split off into our respective teams, each heading towards our own archway. Hopefully we'd be able to catch that damn cat quickly.

-----------------------

5 minutes later

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"Down there, aisle 5464!" I yelled as I ran full tilt on top of the bookcase, jumping over to the next one as I tried to keep sight of the fleeing cat amid the labyrinthine library.

"Dude, that doesn't help when the damn bookcases keep moving around and changing numbers!" Kid Flash yelled over coms. "I'm in aisle… are those wingdings?! What the hell is wrong with this place?!"

I lost sight of the cat again as it sprinted into an open area lined with tables. I saw Starfire flying in from the other side to corner it, but I only managed to catch a brief glimpse of it as it shot out from underneath a table and through another glowing archway.

Starfire floated to a stop next to it. "Curses… well, we were not having much luck in this place in any case. What kind of librarian could manage such a repository of books?"

I landed next to her with a thud. "Ook."

She looked at me in confusion, but before she could say anything out attention was brought upwards by a scream, followed by Miss Martian being chased by a flock of flying books.

----------------------

5 more minutes later

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In retrospect, sliding head first down a massive aqueduct, while quite fun, was a bad idea. Mostly because once we got to one of the collecting pools the damn cat just jumped to the side whereas I missed the grab and fell right in. Also, there was the minor matter of the thing living in the pool.

I grumbled as I climbed out, only for a tentacle limb to try to reach up and pull me back down. "No!" I yelled as I reached down and punched the giant cephalopodan face. "Bad Kraken! Get back down there this instant!"

The creature made a gurgling noise before it descended back into the watery depths. I finished getting back up to the lip of the pool to find Kid Flash waiting for me, a smirk on his face as he looked at me. I glowered back at him. "One word of this and I expose your browser history."

He blinked before he nervously laughed and held up his hands. "Whatever man." He looked over towards the other pools the populated the basin, each one having their own aqueduct filling them. "Boss lady says she saw the cat disappear into another archway over there. Come on."

I started moving but paused as I noticed something up ahead. "Kid Flash?"

"Yeah?"

"Is Miss Martian riding a flying narwhal?"

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Yet 5 more minutes later

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"Ok, Disney is just going to sue somebody now…" I muttered as I swatted away the animate brooms. "Are you sure this is where you saw the cat go?"

"Positive." Miss Martian said as she strode forward into the massive supply closet, her arms outstretched and her eyes glowing as she telekinetically forced most of the cleaning supplies from leaping off the shelves at us. "And it looks like there's nowhere for it to go, either. There's only one way in or out, so it must be in here."

"You say, that, but I do not see it hiding anywhere." Starfire said as she floated along the rows, shaking a bucket off her leg that tried to entangle her. "Perhaps it is behind or in one of the objects." Her hands started to glow with power. "We may have to destroy them all to find our quarry."

Every item in the room stopped for a moment before they all frantically fled the closet as fast as their… uh, selves could take them. A moment later we were alone and I looked at our leader. "Nice, but I'm still not seeing a cat anywhere."

"Hold up," Kid Flash said before he zipped to the other end of the closet and looked at the bare wall. "This stonework is completely different from wall around it. Seems a bit weird, don't it?"

I walked up next to him and saw he was right. The tower was built out of tannish brown bricks, but the wall here seemed to flow into uncut grey stone. I doubted there would be a change in building material without a reason. I reached out my hand… and it passed right through it. "Good catch," I said before I stepped through.

-----------------------​

Light flashed and I stepped out into… a copse. I blinked at the sunlight filtering through the deciduous trees, the sounds of birds and creaking woods echoing around me. The cluster of trees was in the middle of a slight depression in the earth, and behind me was the large boulder I had just walked out of, etched with a number of symbols and runes.

The flat face of the bolder rippled and a moment later the rest of my team followed after me. "Are we… still in the Tower?" Miss Martian asked as she drifted out of the portal and looked at our surroundings.

"Not sure…" I said. "Wouldn't put it past the Tower to have its own pocket forest. Still, this portal seemed different, we might as well assume this is outside."

"Great," Kid Flash grumbled. "Which means that damn cat could be anywhere. If this is the backdoor that hologram was talking about, we'll probably run into its owner if we don't find it quick."

At that moment I heard something on the edge of my hearing. I held up a hand and cocked my head to the side, focusing on the sound. "I think I hear something. It sounds like… a battle?"

"What, like gunfire?" Kid Flash asked.

"Not that kind of battle…" I shifted into flight form and kicked off into the air, rising above the tree line. The terrain below me was a mix of forests and plains extending in all directions. The girls flew up behind me as I came to a stop about two hundred feet in the air, and a quick visual sweep of the area brought my gaze to a particularly large field full of people fighting. Well, mostly people.

"… I don't think we're in Salem anymore, Kori." I said as I eyed the battlefield. Both sides of the battlefield were armed with medieval weaponry and armor, but one side was decidedly more green and monstrous than the other. I wasn't sure if they were orcs, or trolls, or what, but unless I had ended up in New Zealand for some very late filming we were in some kind of fantasy universe.

The Tamaranian drifted next to me, a scowl setting on her face. "What part of earth has such creatures?" she asked, eyeing a group that was grabbing injured humans off the field and shoving them in cages.

"I don't think this is Earth… or at least it shouldn't be. I pretty sure we're in a different world, or on a different plane or something. No idea where though."

"What should we do?" Miss Martian asked.

I was about to say something when Starfire spoke first. "We should help the humans against these monsters. No good can come from letting those things win this battle."

I looked at her. "Starfire, we have our own mission to take care of. Besides which, we know nothing about this conflict, or why these two groups are fighting. We can't just assume the ugly ones are the bad guys." I caught a glimpse of one particularly large greenskin rip the head off a soldier's body and proceeded to drink the blood from its neck stump. "…Alright, they're probably the bad guys, but my point still stands."

"I am not saying that we abandon our mission, but if we see the chance to help we should do so." She said firmly. "No one should suffer the barbarity of monsters."

I opened my mouth to reply, but Kid Flash's voice cut in over coms. "Hey, one of us can't fly you know. What's going on?"

I paused for a moment before I replied. "Looks like we're in a fantasy universe. Knights, orcs, all the jazz." I looked at Starfire and my mouth quirked up at little. "Your call."

She looked back at me for another moment before she said. "Spread out and look for the familiar. If you see any humans in need, help them… but the familiar is the priority."

"Copy that." Kid Flash said. Miss Martian and I nodded before we all split up and started our search. Minutes passed as I carefully started to spiral out from where we had entered into the plain, trying to avoid being spotted by any of the locals. I couldn't tell if I was succeeding or if they were just too busy to notice or care about me, but I didn't draw any fire. It didn't stop me from keeping an eye on them though.

Flying low along the tree line, I both saw and heard the sounds of battle around me. More than just the main forces battling on the plain, a bunch of smaller groups had broken off to try and flank. Given the uneven terrain and the pockets of woods breaking line of sight, this meant there were a number of smaller battles forming everywhere. It made finding a lone cat rather difficult, especially when most of what I could hear was the garbled mix of the sounds of battle and shouting from both sides.

"Thokk k'er ra-!" "-the left flank-!" "Aaaaaah!" "-Scion!" "-ner Graaa!" "TRACIL!"

A lightning bolt felt from the clear sky, striking inside the thick patch of trees in which I heard a smaller skirmish taking place. Probably should avoid that spot, I thought.

"Found it!" Kid Flash suddenly yelled over coms. "I'm about 300 meters left of our entry point, middle of a small clearing. It's in the middle of some weird markings or whatever."

"Understood." Kori replied. "Team Alpha, converge on Kid Flash's position."

"Ah, that isn't necessary, sunset. I can handle this. Here kitty, kitty- Oh Shit!"

God damn it Wally, I thought to myself as I flipped in the air, putting on as much speed as I could as I flew towards his position. I was already fairly close to the location. It wasn't long before I spotted the clearing with the glowing diagram in the center, and a blur being chased by what looked to be a demonic sabretooth tiger.

My flight form required that I use most of my physical structure for control surfaces and internal jets for directing air flow, so I was limited in what additional tech I could make while flying. Fortunately, what I could use was sufficient for the current situation. Electricity crackled over my hands before I brought them up and launched lightning at the creature. It apparently had a good danger sense, as it juked to the side the moment before I launched the bolt, which resulted in only the grass getting scorched.

As I landed in the clearing, it angled its head towards me and growled, but it was forced to move as a flurry of starbolts tore up the ground near it a second later. Starfire dropped into the clearing a second later with Miss Martian following suit, the latter placing herself between the creature and the glowing circle.

The cat took stock of the situation and bolted straight for the circle, running right at Miss Martian. Kid Flash moved in a blur and tried to cut the creature off, but it just side checked him and sent the kid tumbling. Miss Martian's eyes glowed as several heavy logs shot out of the woods and formed a makeshift palisade in front of her. Unfortunately, she didn't build it high enough and the cat jumped over wall, it's whole body glowing as it cleared the distance and landed in the circle with a heavy thud.

There was a blinding flash of light, and we all took a step back. When the light cleared, there were three people standing amid the rocks. Well, two standing with one was on his knees bound by rope, which I quickly identified as a roughed up Kent Nelson. Standing directly over him was a wiry, tan skinned man with a goatee and a puffy shirt, like some kind of swashbuckler or something. And the last, was a very pale boy with dark hair whose outfit reminded me of a pilgrim with wide sleeves. I had no idea who the former was, but I had a pretty short list in mind who the latter could be, and I was not liking it.

The cat (now back to its normal size) jumped into the boy's arms, who gave a smug smirk. "Well-"

That was as far as I let him get before my arm finished forming into a sonic cannon and fired, tearing up the ground between us as the wave of sound ripped towards them. The boy was quick though, and with a flick of his wrist the air rippled between us. The space flashed red as wave hit, and the low bass sound turned into a cacophony of screeching noises as the force poured off in different directions.

Somehow through the noise I heard the boy's voice, a scratching sort of echo. "Naughty, naughty, you strange thing you. You should be taught a lesson."

The red energy shifted and compressed, the sounds dulling down to nothing before it shot back towards me through my sustained fire. As it hit I felt pain as it reverberated through my whole body, enough that it took me a few seconds to realize that I was flying back through the air at an impressive speed. I was a few seconds before I hit the ground with a heavy crash.

I rolled for a few seconds before I managed to come to a stop in some kind of trench. For a few seconds I felt… sore. Aching. Something I hadn't quite felt since I had been transformed. I tried to analyze the sensation, but it faded quickly. It took a moment or two for me to get my bearings, shake off whatever magic was clinging to me and fully look at my surroundings. And realize that I was not alone in that trench.

The blonde woman and I blinked at each other owlishly, neither having expected to find someone else. The young woman was dressed in form fitting royal purple cloth, with more flowing cloth around the chest, waist and neck. She had a few pieces of golden armor covering her arms, and a regal looking tiara holding back her long hair. In one hand she held a saber, but she wasn't pointing it at me at the moment.

We stared at each other for a second before we waved awkwardly.

"Machina!" I heard Starfire yell.

At the same time I heard another voice calling out from the other direction. "Amethyst!"

The two of us hesitated for a moment, before we shrugged as one and leapt of out the trench, running back towards our respective battles. Wonder what the story there was?

I kicked off into the air and speed back to the group to find the fight well underway. The boy and the swashbuckler stood in a shell of shifting red energy, firing a variety of energy attacks at my teammates. Starfire and Miss Martian were firing energy and rocks at the shield, but they were having no effect. I had half a mind to try adding my own lightning to the mix, but I had the feeling that it wouldn't do much.

"Oh, now I remember this place!" I heard the boy say excitedly, seemingly not caring about the rest of us. "Hasn't changed a bit ever since we handed it over to that one sorceress." His face twisted into a scowl. "I knew it was a mistake."

I landed some distance away on the other side of the defensive shell and turned my arm into a laser cannon, but this time I made a bit of a change. I was normally leery of using a maser in any context, but I needed something different if I wanted to bypass that shield of theirs. I set the barrel to widespread and fired a steady but low intensity burst of microwaves at them.

The effect was instantaneous, the pair flinching as they were hit with the invisible rays. It was at non-lethal levels, but I imagined it was hard to keep concentrating when you were suffering from what felt like the worst full body sunburn of your life. The boy only lasted for a few seconds before he snarled and thrust out his hands. The shell around them shattered and the shards flew out in all directions. I went back into the air to dodge, though a few curved upwards to follow me.

"We need to know what we are up against!" Starfire said as she took cover behind a tree from the new attack.

"The one in the white is Abra Kadabra!" Kid Flash yelled as he blurred around trees to avoid the swarm of energy bolts following him. "He's a time traveler that uses future tech to fake magic! Don't know the other one though!"

I dropped next to him and smashed a tree, causing it to fall and block the projectiles. "I think that's Klarion the Witch Boy. He's an immortal sorcerer, very strong!" I suppose I couldn't be certain about that, but at the moment it felt like a pretty good guess.

The kid looked like he was about to say something but he stopped, his eyes unfocusing a bit. For a moment I was worried that he had been hit by a spell before he refocused on me, zipping up right next to me and whispering "Be distracting, go!"

I looked after him confused for a moment before I realized that he must have got a telepathic message from Starfire. A plan must have been made, but she didn't want it said out loud or over coms. I didn't pause for long before I moved to skirt around our opponents. I may not have known what the plan was, but I was willing to trust my team.

As Starfire flew overhead and drew the attention of the fake magician, I ran in at the Witch Boy. He noticed my approach and smiled wickedly. "Someone wants to play!" he said before his shadow elongated and split, several shadow copies of himself lifting off the ground and launching themselves at me. I juked to the side and formed a laser cannon, firing at the shadows. Some I hit and were dissipated, others I managed to dodge.

I wasn't quite fast enough to dodge the last shadow though. It ripped straight through me, and that aching soreness I felt before returned in force… before it faded a few seconds later. I shook my head as I regained my wits. Was that supposed to be it? Probably not, as Klarion looked just as confused by this result as I was. I brought my cannon up and fired at him while he was distracted, but he was fast enough to bring up his hand and scatter my beam into kaleidoscopic light.

Meanwhile, the Witch Boy's partner was having trouble all his own. "A Tamaranian? What is one of you doing here?" Abra remarked as a dozen broadswords materialized out of the air around him and fired at the woman. "You lot should be stuck on your home world and remaining colonies by this point."

"What would you know of my people?!" Starfire yelled back as she swooped to avoid the storm of blades. She then righted herself and fired off a salvo of starbolts at her opponent.

"Oh, this and that…" Abra replied casually as he flicked his wand out in front of him, several translucent shield constructs blocking the energy blasts. "Would you like to know the fate of your planet?"

She froze in midair, staring down at the timer traveler. "Tell me…"

"Well-"

"NOW!"

As she yelled that, Kid Flash appeared out of thin air in the middle of the clearing, moving at top speed toward the enemy. Even with my attention split I saw the air he appeared from waver and reveal a sort of wide green sheet that was quickly reforming into Miss Martian. Kid Flash was so close and so fast that neither of our opponents had time to react before he reached the bound Kent Nelson, hoisted him up and started booking it out of the clearing.

"NOOOOO!" Klarion screeched as he turned from me and simply flew after Kid Flash. As his screech grew louder the air shook and suddenly the rest of my team grabbed their ears and felt to the ground in pain. Abra and I flinched but remained upright, the both of us apparently not that effected by the attack. I moved to silence the Witch Boy, but Abra gestured at me with his wand and glowing shackles formed on my hands and feet. He then tossed a small metallic cube at me.

I had no idea what that cube was, and I had no intension of finding out (on his terms anyway). My limbs lengthened and narrowed, slipping out of my restraints as I stepped forward and speared through the box with my arm. My assimilation spikes deployed, but partway through eating the device I stumbled as it fought back. The thing had been loaded with nanites that did not like what I was doing. I could handle it, but it put me off balance for a few seconds until I was done.

Abra gave me the strangest look as he hesitated. "Wait, just what are…" he trailed off for a moment before his eyes widened. "No, no, no, absolutely not!" His wand flicked out and a white glow started to envelop him. However, as he did so he took a step back and stumbled over the cat, which happened to be just behind him. I used the moment he was off balance to close the distance and pounce. Just as I grabbed him I managed to hear Klarion yell "Teekl!" before everything seemed to flicker-fall sideways and me and Abra landed on the ground.

It took me a moment to realize we had left the clearing, now located in some kind of rock quarry. I suspected teleportation was involved, but at that moment I chose to focus on the man who was pinned under me. He looked up at me with wide eyes. "Wait-"

I shocked him before he could continue, but amazingly he didn't fall unconscious. He screamed in pain as electricity arced off of him, but he still managed to yell "Just hold on a minute!"

A wave of force from the side sent me flying off the man, but I managed to land on my feet and face the irritated Witch Boy who had appeared out of nowhere. "At least that much works…" he drawled out, his features becoming just a little more inhuman as his cat moved to hid behind his legs. "Let's try a few more things, shall we?"

I rapidly formed air jets on my back and my arms turned into lightning claws. I was going to close the distance as fast as possible and engage the squishy casters in melee. My jets flared to life and I

[ ███████ ]

stopped. Wait, what no I

[ ████████████ ]

stopped. What? What the fuck was happening?! I dimly noticed that Abra's glowing shackles had formed on me again, but they couldn't have been what was… what was that? The man was pointing his wand at me, but unlike before his brow was furrowed in intense concentration as he muttered rapidly under his breath.

I didn't have time to think on this before Klarion started hitting me with wave after wave of harshly scintillating energy. Each time it hit I felt soreness and aching, building on top of itself until it moved into a full body sickness. I was able to weather it though, and after a bit he stopped and I felt myself start to recover.

The boy frowned in irritation, not pleased with the result. "You're not paralyzing, you're not going blind, you're not hallucinating that you're the main character of a trashy romance novel… and your soul is-" He paused for a moment before he laughed. "Wait, silly me, I'm just being too specific." Suddenly Klarion's features distorted even more, his appearance almost demonic as he pointed a finger at me. "BREAK."

A beam that warped space launched itself from his finger and hit me, and in that instant everything twisted in on itself and broke. Shards of light bled and burned, screams cut themselves through my flesh into the earth, the taste of blood echoed though the past and future leaving the present a hungry void, and a fractal kaleidoscope etched out the death of thought.

I don't know how long it was before the pain and disorientation receded, and I was just left with darkness. I felt panic rise inside of me until I felt that ever-present chittering rise, and I realized I had had been reduced to the blob of mass I had been when I first got these nanites. I focused on my form and started pulling myself together as fast as I could. My hearing was the first sense to come back, and I managed to catch part of what the Witch Boy was saying. "-nonsense, but I have always wanted a new toy. I think this will do nicely."

"No!" Abra said. "We don't have time for you to 'play'. You heard them, the kids have the other searching for the Helmet. We don't want them reaching it before we do."

"Tch, killjoy." A sigh. "But I suppose you're right. Teekl, come!"

I just managed to get my sight back in time for me to see them disappear in a flash of light, Abra looking back at me for a moment before he was gone. As my body took a humanoid shape I tried to stand up and move after them, but I only got one step before I was slammed with the same aching soreness as earlier. Taking a step back caused it to stop, and I saw the cause: A glowing orange circle about two meters across surrounding me. As I reformed I carefully tried to stand up, but my head brushed the top of the field, sending me collapsing back onto the ground. I tried digging underneath the circle, but quickly found it extended downwards in a sphere beneath me.

I was trapped.

Shit.