Chapter 8: Chapter 7: Garage Sale Drama

A soft breeze blew over Susan and Elizabeth as they lay underneath the stars. Susan was sprawled catlike around Elizabeth, silent as she stared off at the distant glow of the town.

It wasn't the town she was seeing. Instead her mind was reliving that day from a thousand years ago. Her eyes looking up at the distant figure of Takeo as he was lifted from the caldera.

“Susan?” Elizabeth’s voice came from below, where she sat cross legged on the grass of the field.

“Hm,” Susan hummed in response,

“So is that your whole backstory or is there more?” Elizabeth said in the sing song voice she reserved exclusively for annoying Susan with.

Susan whipped her head down, spearing her sister with a glare.

“No there's way more, I spent like a thousand years there!” She snapped.

“Well is there like a pre episode recap? ‘Last time on Susan Hill’ or something?” Elizabeth shot back, wearing a cocky grin as she stared up at the hulking form of her sister.

Susan couldn’t help the chuckle that followed. A trunk-like arm came up and gave Elizabeth a shove, who laughed in response. Susan didn’t notice as Elizabeth ducked her head to hide a relieved smile.

“Alright, let's leave the recap for some other time,” Susan said, “Though is there anything you want to know about Themus?”

Elizabeth frowned for a second, “So about that Takeo guy, did you ever, y’know, get him?”

Susan sighed, “No, that rat’s still out there.”

“Really?” Elizabeth asked, looking Susan’s body up and down.

She knew Elizabeth was looking over the meters of sculpted muscle, razor claws and heavy scales.

“In the end it didn’t really matter how well designed my body was,” Susan shook her head sadly, “The one time I saw Takeo afterward, he just set his bodyguards on me and ran.”

Elizabeth nodded in understanding.

“So what about you?” Susan asked, “What’s the deal with you and your magic powers?”

Elizabeth shrugged, “Nothing crazy, honestly. A couple years ago I saved Amy from a tree falling on her. Next thing I knew, I was being chosen as one of the protectors of earth.”

“Wild… wait you WHAT-”

“Aaanyway,” Elizabeth shouted over her response, “I was super confused about what to do at first but the others helped me figure things out.”

Susan definitely wanted to talk about Elizabeth being involved with falling trees but something else caught her attention, “Others?”

“Yeah, other magical girls,” Elizabeth replied, “Oh, here comes one now.”

She pointed upward. Susan had to take a second to question whether or not Elizabeth was trying to distract her before she gave in and looked.

At first she only saw a shooting star. A tiny pinprick of light streaking across the sky. Then she realized that it was coming toward them, fast.

And it was getting larger.

Barely a second later, it hit center of the field with the force of a meteor. Susan squinted as a wave of pulverized grass and dirt blew past her.

A woman stood at the center of the crater. Tall, with dark black hair and skin, she stood up from a crouch on two powerful legs. A golden glow illuminated her as she looked up and her eyes locked onto Susan.

Susan blinked to make sure she wasn't seeing things.

“Hey, that’s not a magical girl!” She exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger at the her.

Instead of Elizabeth’s dress and frills, she wore what resembled Greek armor. A close fitting bronze chest plate, as well as bracers, greaves, and an armored skirt. The woman herself was tall and muscular, with her hair in a heavy braid down her back. The only real similarity between her and Elizabeth was that they were both women, and not clearly not a fan of Susan’s dragon-ness.

“Elizabeth, are you there?” The woman shouted with a lilting accent that Susan couldn’t place.

“Oh hey Abana!” Elizabeth called back as she walked around the front of Susan’s torso.

“Oh hey, OH HEY?” Abana almost screamed, “The last thing I heard from you was that you were going to confront a dragon. A dragon! With no plan, no backup. Are you stupid girl?”

Susan guffawed, “It took you long enough to figure that one out!”

Abana seemed to remember that Susan was there, placing herself in front of Elizabeth and dropping into a crouch.

“I don’t know what game your playing, but-”

A worried looking Elizabeth cut her off by tapping on her shoulder.

“Uh…” She said, tapping two fingers together, “So as it turns out, she, like, is my sister… sooo…”

She trailed off under the wrathful gaze of Abana, who seemed to be losing in a fight against her urge to smack the girl in front of her.

Susan watched in bemused silence as she was once again forgotten by the two.

“And did you not think to check, perhaps, if this is true?” Abana asked with a face trapped between worry and amazed disappointment.

Elizabeth’s sudden interest in the night sky was enough of an answer.

Abana forced out a heavy sigh, before turning back to Susan.

“So,” She said, “You claim not to be a skinwalker like Elizabeth believed, but instead to be her sister in truth?”

Susan answered with a shrug of her enormous shoulders. “Yep, pretty much.”

“And how did you explain becoming a dragon overnight?”

Susan let out a heavy sigh of her own that sent the grass around her rustling. “Well, as I was just telling Elizabeth, I got stuck in another world for a thousand years. Seriously, becoming a dragon isn’t something you do in a day, it took me a decade to formulate the basic design of my body alone.”

“Wait, no way!” Elizabeth burst in, “Did you get so obsessed with making your dragon body absolutely perfect that you wasted the entire thousand years?”

“What, no!” Susan exclaimed, “It was only one hundred and fifty!”

All it took was one look at Elizabeth’s toothy smile to know she had been outplayed.

“S-shut up,” Susan retorted feebly, ducking her head to the side.

Abana looked back and forth between the two with tired eyes. “May God have pity on me, there’s another,” She muttered.

“What?” The sisters asked simultaneously.

“Ahem, there is a method to verify your claims,” Abana said, “Rawiyah Sekh at the Brick should be able to divine the answer.”

Susan leaned back in shock, “You want to get answers from a seer?”

“What’s wrong with that?” Elizabeth shot back, somewhat suspiciously.

“Well they’re f-“

“They can be unreliable or manipulative,” Abana interrupted her, “But Rawiyah has known our group for centuries and can be relied upon.”

Susan gave her a long look, then shrugged. They would see eventually.

“Alright then, climb on,” She said, climbing to her feet and unfurling her wings and stretching them. They resembled scaled bat wings, attached to her back above and behind her normal arms. The motion created an enormous gust of air that made the trees surrounding the field shake.

“Hey, when did you get those?” Elizabeth shouted up at her.

Susan rolled her eyes, “How about you pay attention next time, I’ve had them the whole time.”

A flap of her wings made Elizabeth and Abana braced themselves against the resulting gale of wind. Elizabeth laughed and sprinted toward Susan, making a running jump at her.

Susan had to duck her head to avoid the surface-to-air-sibling. Elizabeth sailed over, and Susan felt her land somewhere on her expansive back.

“You can’t just,” Abana cut herself off and rolled her eyes, “Never mind.”

A wave of her hand fixed the crater she had made when arriving, before she turned and jogged up to Susan’s side. A much more conservative jump placed her behind Susan’s head.

Susan waited until they settled, and began sketching a rune on the ground.

“How do you plan to fly?” Abana said from where she sat. “I do not believe your wingspan is great enough for it.”

“Oh, so you noticed,” Susan smiled. Abana was right, Susan’s wingspan was about the same width as her body, one hundred and fifty feet from tip to tip. It was certainly impressive, but for a creature of her scale the physics would never work to get her airborne.

“Well, my wingspan isn’t enough for normal flight, but with a bit of magic I can make things work.”

Her hand finished forming the rune, and watched its glow illuminate her for a moment. Her body began to feel lighter as the pull of gravity lessened. She grinned and with a flap of her wings she was rising above the treeline.

Soon she was sailing high over the town, headed toward the distinctive shimmering of the Brick’s glamour. The streetlights of the town spread out below them, forming a glowing pattern of squares.

“This is awesome!” Elizabeth shouted from her back.

Susan’s snakelike neck slowly turned her head around to stare at Elizabeth.

“You can fly, right?” She asked.

“Yeah, but not on a dragon!” Elizabeth yelled back.

Susan shook her head as she faced forward again, she never could win an argument with her goofball sister.

It only took a minute to reach the tower. Susan decided to travel around to land in the forest on the other side for some privacy to transform back.

After resuming her human form and magicking on the same wool robes as yesterday, Susan was ready to meet this Rawiyah Seck.

It was Elizabeth who let them in this time, performing the same introductory speech as Anne. It wasn't until they had entered one of the elevators and selected a surprisingly familiar floor that Elizabeth broke the silence.

“So what’s with the sack?” She asked as she leaned back against the wall. Susan was standing next to Abana as she selected the floor, and turned to glare at her.

“You exploded my clothes when you forcibly canceled my transformation spell,” She said, trying to hold in the following, ‘you idiot’.

“Oh,” Elizabeth said, looking away.

Susan rolled her eyes and turned back to Abana.

“So the government knows about you guys?” She asked.

Abana shrugged, “They do. They cannot do anything to stop us, and it would be entirely detrimental if they did, so their policy is to leave us alone.”

Susan nodded in understanding.

“So where are we heading? I’ve been down to this floor before, but didn’t enter.”

Abana shot her a look, her eyebrow raised, “You’ve been to the Brick before?”

Susan shrugged, “Yup, I didn't get the chance to explore though, I was just dropping off a friend.”

Abana’s eyebrow didn't go down, “Haven’t you only been here for a day?”

“Yes, a very, very long day.”

The doors opened to the familiar hallway. Susan moved out of the elevator before the others, quickly moving past the riot of graffiti and the old ‘parking garage’ sign. She wanted this side mission over as soon as possible.

She turned the corner and stopped in her tracks.

The roar of noise she had heard earlier had done nothing to prepare her for this. A riot of light sound and color washed past her as she stared out into an enormous, low ceilinged room housing a market. She couldn’t see much from her position in the hallway, but her current position already afforded her a view of crowds of beings both human and inhuman milling around. Attending and visiting an equally mad assortment of stalls.

Stolen novel; please report.

Abana and Elizabeth walked past her toward the market, apparently unsurprised by the sight. A smirk from Elizabeth told Susan that the girl was greatly enjoying her reaction.

Susan walked after the pair, fully exiting the hallway and entering the chaos. Her head was almost on a swivel, staring at the crowd in shock.

A wave from Elizabeth caught her attention and she made her way over to the two magical girls who stood by a concrete barrier.

Abana looked bemused while Elizabeth was outright grinning.

“Welcome to the Garage Sale!” She shouted, waving a hand behind her. Susan looked past her and finally saw the full scope of the place, her jaw dropping.

They stood in a parking garage. Except it was anything but a normal parking garage. Susan was reminded of the variety of elevator sizes she had seen in the lobby. It appeared the same design philosophy had been carried over here.

The bottom floors were enormous things, easily tall enough to fit semi trucks length wise. But as the room slowly spiraled up and up, each successive floor became smaller and smaller. The top floors were barely visible, each only a foot or two high.

Everything was wrapped around a hollow center that looked large enough to let rocket ships pass through. The empty space at the bottom was taken up by an enormous arrangement of folding chairs around a circular stage, where it seemed an auction was going on.

The final effect was a cavernous space that could have housed several armies at the same time. All painted with enough art and graffiti to make it a museum. Except it seemed it had been turned into the world’s largest flea market, instead.

The size of the building no longer held any surprise for Susan. She had seen grossly oversized buildings before. What had her attention was again the sheer variety of peoples on display.

Susan’s time on Themus had been largely confined to a single continent. While she had been told of rare and fantastical creatures of the other continents, most of her time had been spent interacting with humans, elves, and the occasional orc or dwarf.

Those were present, but lost in an impossible variety of other creatures that filled the enormous hall that they stood in. Animal creatures seemed the most common. Bear, wolf, hawk, and every other kind of animal fused with humans in a variety of ways. A bush with legs caught her attention as it walked by, arm in arm with a lion walking upright.

Susan also noticed the pale skin of vampires, red skinned Japanese Oni, and a wide spread of attendees with skin every color of the rainbow. The combined noise of their talking and shouting came together into a cacophony of noise that left Susan reeling.

But that was only on the middle section of floors she was currently on.

The upper floors held entire petting zoos of rabbits, foxes, as well as halflings, goblins, and many more. All buying and selling with little regard for their surroundings. The lower floors were even more insane. Susan caught a glimpse of full size dinosaurs, even a T-Rex, talking and chatting with giants, ogres, and walking trees.

She turned back to the magical girls.

“What is this place?” She called over the noise.

“It is a market, run by the very Rawiyah Sekh we plan to see,” Abana said, leaning in close to be heard over the noise.

“But, how did this even happen?” Susan asked helplessly as she waved her arm at the cacophony of life around them.

“Oh, I know this one,” Elizabeth said, leaning in, “When they built the Brick, they made the parking garage too for all the cars they thought people would bring. Except they forgot that almost everybody here can run or fly faster than cars. So nobody used it. Then Rawiyah showed up and turned it into the Garage Sale.”

“It is not the Garage Sale, it’s proper name is the Goblin Market,” Abana interrupted.

‘C’mon nobody calls it that,” Elizabeth said back, from her position on the other side of Susan. Abana turned away from her and back to Susan.

“If you do call it anything, do not call it the Garage Sale in front of Rawiyah. She hates that name,” She said.

Susan shrugged helplessly in response.

“Uh, lead the way, I guess,” She said, hoping for direction out of the chaos she had found herself in.

Abana nodded and began making her way up the spiraling concrete of the parking garage. They made their way past a thousand different storefronts. Some were small buildings, some tents. Some were just collections of card tables covered in swords, tools, magical items, and sometimes just normal items, like clothes or books.

One thing caught attention, however. Every so often, Susan would spot a person with brown hair and black eyes in the crowd. She remembered the boy who had attacked Anne in the elevator. He had shared her hair and eyes, like the people she saw now.

Anne had implied that her people were largely taken over by her uncle. That made their heavy presence in the market around her… a bit concerning.

They walked past an enormous beehive selling magical honey next to a modern glass storefront advertising pedicures.

Someone caught her eye, standing in the storefront. An older woman, her silhouette seemed familiar.. Her height was shortened with age but she still stood tall, with a straight back. Then a familiar head of dark hair, streaked with gray. She stood facing one of the bees, shaking a fist at it while it buzzed angrily back at her.

Susan’s steps slowed, and she turned towards the pair. That woman… it couldn’t be who she thought it was… right?

She hoped it wasn't. She wasn’t sure she could deal with people she knew randomly turning out to have magic powers three times in one day. Kelly and Elizabeth were more than enough.

She was interrupted, as a group passed between her and the stall. When they had left, the woman had vanished with them.

She wanted to keep moving towards the stall, find the woman and put things straight. Instead she found her head turning towards the group that had passed by. It was mostly composed of the same humans she had seen everywhere through the market, with brown hair and black eyes.

Terry was with them, talking and chatting with a few other men. There was a cheery camaraderie between them.

Susan didn't like it. Anne had implied she was safe here. The heavy presence of her ‘extended family’ implied otherwise.

A shout from Abana caught her attention again. The two magical girls had left her well behind and were once again waving to catch her attention. Susan jogged to catch up with them, eyeing Terry to make sure he hadn’t caught sight of her.

She didn't know if he’d remember her, and did not want to find out.

Their walk eventually took them to the upper floors, where Susan found herself needing to crouch to move forward. The variety and chaos around her never seemed to stop until she found herself crouching with Abana and Elizabeth in front of a miniature service door about two and a half feet high.

Abana rapped on it, before opening the door and entering. Elizabeth waved her forward and Susan stepped through.

The room she found herself in was not what she was expecting. For one it was tall enough for her to stand up in. While still not as tall as a normal room, it was still a good six feet high, and maybe twice that wall to wall.

The room was the normal square design of the brick, but the walls and ceiling were covered in an intricate pattern of colored tiles. The sight reminded Susan of pictures of an Ottoman palace she had seen.

Three doors sat in the center leading further into the building. Low couches lined the rest of the walls, while a three foot tall pedestal sat in the center. It was odd, resembling a table with a large central pillar to hold it up and a wide top. But it had a coiling bar that ran from the outer edge of the top down to the floor, spiraling around like a staircase.

The top was empty, except for a triangle of metal pins sticking up from the center.

Susan found the room to be quite interesting, most of the other seers she had met were more gaudy. Preferring gold as their primary form of decoration, and source of color.

Abana was already seated on one of the couches across from the door. She had made herself comfortable, arms thrown over the back of the couch, and one leg crossed over the other as she sat back.

Susan settled down on one of the couches perpendicular to her. A moment later Elizabeth bounced into the room. In a moment she had laid herself out on the couch next to Susan.

A moment of silence followed.

Susan turned to Abana and raised an eyebrow.

“So-”

“Hello,” came a voice beside her.

Susan’s head whipped around so see an empty room.

“Down here, child,” The voice came again.

Her eyes found the speaker. It was a mouse, standing on its hind legs looking up at her. It was old, so old its hair was a solid white, but with huge black eyes that seemed to take in Susan all at once.

She leaned on a tiny cane with one paw, a bulbous square handbag in the other.

“Susan, I presume?” The mouse, clearly Rawiyah, said in a squeaky, yet somehow powerful voice.

“Yep,” Susan said through her teeth.

She’d had her suspicions when Abana had mentioned going to see a seer. It mirrored Anne’s statement of her Mousekin grandmother being one as well. While connection had been easy to make, Susan had been hoping against it.

Having a personal connection to a seer was never good. The incredible power of foresight only attracted two kinds of people. Desperate people, and power hungry manipulators.

Interactions with seers usually left Susan constantly second guessing her actions as she found herself floundering within their multilayered plans.

Susan hoped for Anne’s sake that things went well between her and Rawiyah. The majority of her dealings with powerful seers had ended poorly for the seer in question.

At least Susan thought they had. That was the problem with seers.

“So you are the one Annabeth was speaking about,” Rawiyah said, breaking her out of her thoughts.

Susan nodded.

“Thank you,” The mouse said, nodding her head.

Susan blinked, somewhat taken aback by the entirely reasonable response.

Rawiyah turned and walked away from her, heading toward the table at the center of the room. Reaching it, she began making her way up the spiral around the edge. It really was a staircase, the tiny ridges making steps for Rawiyah to walk up.

She reached the top and paused. Setting down her cane, she opened the top of her bag, and pulled out a small marble. Then, moving to the center of the tabletop with the metal pins, she set the marble in between them. The pins held the marble at about the shoulder level of the mouse, acting as an odd sort of stand.

Finally finished, she turned to Abana.

“So what is it you wish to know?” She asked.

“We need to know if she is really Elizabeth’s sister.” Abana said, pointing to Susan.

“You fear she is a skinwalker of some kind?”

“Not anymore,” Abana said with a glance towards Susan, “But we need to be completely sure.”

Rawiyah nodded before turning to her marble and gazing into it. There wasn't any change in it that Susan could see, but Rawiyah definitely saw something.

She leapt back from the marble, head whipping to stare at Susan.

“A dragon!” She shrieked.

Susan blinked, somewhat taken aback.

Abana looked confused, “Yes, what is the problem?”

”Joseph, is what,” The mouse squeaked, throwing her paws in the air in frustration. A few seconds later, she calmed herself and turned back to the now visibly concerned Abana.

“He plans to confront me tonight,” She spoke quickly, “I am sure you noticed the Mousekin gathered in the Market. My visions show that he will force his way through my protections, then try to claim Annabeth for his ritual!”

Her words quickly were almost shouted by the end. Elizabeth seemed confused by the tirade. Abana looked furious, with her fists clenched by her side.

Susan looked on, now very worried. The conversation wasn’t making sense, the emotions too high, things moving too fast.

She opened her mouth, planning to speak up and calm things down. She was interrupted by a squeal as the door on the other side of the room opened.

They must not have been the only ones who heard Rawiyah’s shouting. A familiar head of brown hair popped through the opening.

“Grandma, is everything alright?” Anne asked.

The mouse seemed to shrink in on herself, “I am afraid not. Come and sit down, we must talk.”

Anne slipped into the room, looking around at its other occupants. She jumped on seeing Susan seated across from her. Susan waved her over. Anne almost dashed across the room, settling on the couch next to Susan with her knees pulled up in front of her.

Rawiyah sighed, looking apologetically at Anne.

“I am sorry Annabeth, I appear to have trapped one of your friends within my plans again.”

Anne’s jaw clenched and she looked away, “Again?” She asked in a trembling voice.

Rawiyah shook her head, “Yes,” She whispered.

She turned back to Abana, “I had foreseen Anne’s latest protector,” She said, raising a hand towards Susan. “I saw a figure of great power that would appear to stop Joseph’s plans tonight. Unfortunately, I had not anticipated it would be a dragon.”

“Can’t you see her future?” Abana asked.

“She can’t see the future of a person with too much magical power,” Anne said quietly.

Rawiyah nodded, “And Anne had not informed me of her protector’s race.”

“Uh,” Susan managed to speak up for the first time since the conversation began, “Why is me being a dragon a problem?”

“Joseph uses Eldritch magic,” Rawiyah said.

Beside Susan, Elizabeth froze in place. Throughout the conversation she had been looking ready to explode. Clearly the idea of not immediately helping didn’t sit right with her.

But the instant Eldritch magic was brought up, the excitement seemed to drain out of her, replaced by fear. She seemed to draw into herself, a shiver passing through her. Susan quickly moved closer and placed an arm over her shoulders, pulling her in close.

The reason for Elizabeth’s worry was obvious. Eldritch mana was a corrupting force to the reality around it, and especially to other mana. Any mana touched by it immediately warped, becoming unstable and dangerous. Enough exposure and it would become Eldritch mana as well.

For beings like Magical Girls, who practically ran on mana, it would be the ultimate poison.

For Susan though?

She took a moment to stare at the mouse; shouldn’t Rawiyah know at least the basics about her? Whatever problems Rawiyah had seeing Susan, she was still a seer.

A thought occurred to her. This entire conversation was off. Everything was happening too quickly, too easily despite the tension. She narrowed her eyes.

There was a way to spot a seer's plans. You could never look at how they acted. You had to judge whether or not the end situation lined up to their benefit.

As it stood, Anne, as well as two magical girls were being threatened by Joseph’s attack. The consequences of him reaching any of them would be disastrous. This made Susan the only person able to fight him off.

If she had come on her own, or had things gone a different way, she could have just taken Anne and run away. While she didnt see herself doing that, the option was now gone. The Mousekin’s presence in the market was too heavy to easily escape.

Susan only had one option available to her now, stay and fight.

She stood, still glaring at Rawiyah.

“You could have just asked,” She snapped.

“You would have said no,” The mouse said calmly.

“No, I-” Susan stopped herself, “Wait-”

“Yes,” Rawiyah said, “You would have said no to my actual request.”

Elizabeth looked confused, but the other two had clearly caught what was going on and were staring daggers at Rawiyah.

Abana quickly turned to Susan.

“Are you sure you can do this?” She said, “I can hold them off and give you enough time to get everyone out.

They locked eyes for a moment. Within Abana’s determined gaze, Susan saw an iron resolve.

There was a promise there. No matter what happened to her or Susan, Anne and Elizabeth would survive tonight.

“Wait, but what about-” Elizabeth broke in, before Susan interrupted her with a bop to the head.

“I'll be fine, Eldritch mana can’t hurt me,” Susan said, ignoring the fact she was stretching the truth a lot with that sentence.

A thunderous boom from the door made everyone jump.

“They are here,” Rawiyah said, not having moved an inch. Susan looked back at her.

The mouse stood on the edge of the table, her marble abandoned. Her paws clenched over her cane as she leaned forward. She didn't seem to see the disapproving stares of the others in the room. She was completely focused on Susan, carefully watching her every move.

Susan couldn’t help but be reminded of Anne from earlier in the day. When she lay crumpled on the floor of the bathroom, staring up at Susan with hope in her eyes.

A realization hit her and she finally saw why Rawiyah was so different from the other seers. She hadn’t met Susan with the intention of drawing her into her power grabs and money schemes. She was someone who had seen a rope and grabbed onto it, perhaps a little too hard.

Schemes and all, this little old mouse-lady was trying to save herself and her great-niece. Or Susan was being manipulated again.

Who knew, really.

A second boom from the door echoed through the room. A dent appeared,as the steel of the door was forced inwards.

Susan shook her head, trying to clear her muddled thoughts.

Shooting a look at Abana, she gave a jerk of her head towards Elizabeth. Abana nodded, then quickly moved over to sit down next to the young magical girl.

“Right, be back in a sec,” Susan said, before walking over to the door.

Upon reaching it, she stopped and turned to look back over the room for a second. She saw a small mouse, head bowed in relief, standing on the table. Around her the other girls still sat seated on the couches.

Anne looked angry, both at the situation, and Rawiyah. She shot Susan a thankful smile, before glaring at Rawiyah.

The two magical girls sat next to each other. Abana had her arm over Elizabeth’s shoulder, comforting the younger girl. The woman had a calm and unbothered expression, but her frequent glances over to Rawiyah betrayed the fury she was feeling.

The casual way she had described Rawiyah implied that while the two women may not be friends, they were certainly on good terms. Abana’s furious glances said that their relationship was not going to survive Rawiyah’s choice to use her like as a pawn in her schemes.

As for Elizabeth, the younger magical girl was seated properly for once, Back straight, hands on her knees and eyes forward, she maintained a stoic look over her face.

Unfortunately for her, Susan’s familiarity with her as well as the girl’s young age let Susan see through it easily. Elizabeth was terrified, both by the nebulous threat of eldritch mana, as well as for Susan.

She shot a supportive smile at Susan, but it didn't do much to hide the hurt confusion underneath.

Susan’s realizations about Rawiyah had killed most of her animosity toward her, but this brought it back some. Though it would have to wait until she was done with the mousekin.

But first she shot Elizabeth a smile, “Wanna see something cool when I’m done?” She asked with a grin.

Elizabeth nodded back, her smile a bit more genuine this time.

Susan sketched a rune in the air and waited for a moment. A third boom came from the door.

Susan leapt forward and pulled it open. She was met with a half dozen burly Mousekin crouched under the low ceiling beyond the door. They held a battering ram between them, about nine feet long and held up by metal bars welded every few feet down its length.

Apparently the Mousekin took Rawiyah’s threats seriously.

Unfortunately for them, Susan did too.

“Hey there!” She said, before completing the inner circle of her rune. It flashed and a wave of concussive force blasted the group back like dolls kicked by a child.

Susan ducked through the now empty doorway and slammed the door shut behind her. The sound of it closing echoed over the small army of mice-kin waiting in the space beyond.