Battle Of Gringotts

[Isis Moswen]

It often amazed Isis how people never seemed to take her seriously. With every amount of wrath unleashed and every bit of carnage that was left in her wake, there were still those few who wanted to push her buttons. All things considered, she had built up quit the resume since she had turned fifteen. In that time she had: been leader of a pack for several years, kill numerous Ministry officials and do-gooders who had gotten in her way (or had been asked to assassinate), fought with other wolves and emerge victorious and squeezed her way into the tight-knit group around the Dark Lord. Her years had been extended by her kind’s increased life span, but none the less her work was impressive. Isis had never been sure the exact reason why she felt the need to make herself known amongst her kind and anyone that knew of werewolves’ existence. It could have been from the torment she went through as a child and young teenager. She had always been picked on, insulted, and on occasion, fought simply because of her looks. Growing up to be a werewolf had been hard on her. Though her family’s name was respected in Egypt, she was consistently at the mercy of others. Osiris had tried his hardest to defend her when needed, but it was pointless. Her peers were resilient. They made fun of anything and everything about her. So it would be natural for her to have some lingering feelings of resentment even after she had severely injured or killed quite a few of them.

What she had always been most proud of was her vampire numbers. One of the kids that had teased her had been a vampire, something that she had found out upon fully completing her transformation and seeking the woman-child out. Isis was very well aware that her name was often the center of attention in their world. Along with Diego and several other known werewolves, she was one that they knew had the ability to harm and maim and that she was good at it. So why they felt the need to readily stand up to her always baffled her. They always felt the need to be the one that finally got Isis Moswen, knocking one of the names of the list of dangerous werewolves. And time and time again she continued to prove why she held her spot. They never learned. Bloodsuckers were like gnats. No matter how hard they were swatted at, they evaded death and kept flying around. To her, they were the most worthless species in existence. Even giants and trolls were held in higher regard then them. They were nuisances who were too stubborn to admit who the superior race was. Isis usually wasn’t too surprised by their defiance. But on occasion, there were few who utterly confused her by their actions. This was one of those times.

She had been fully expecting for the familiar-looking Ministry official to receive her curse straight to his chest. She expected for the fear to be permanently frozen on his face when he fell lifeless to the floor. She expected for Wentworth to come over, ready to extract revenge for the death of his fellow official. Isis’ expectations had been foiled not even a second after the green light had left her wand. A body had forced itself between her and her victim, taking the brunt of the spell. The body hadn’t even fallen to the ground before she knew who it was. Sonnet had been the one to protect the man. If there was one thing she hated, it was being stopped. Whenever she chose to do something she presumed that she would be able to finish it. It may have taken time, but ultimately she would be successful and move on to the next thing. It was so rare for her plans to be interrupted though that when they were, Isis didn’t know how to handle it, which was exactly how she felt as Keara slowly began pushing her way up from the floor. Needless to say, her lover was just as surprised as she was. They were both frozen. She with her wand still in the official’s direction, and him with that stupid bewildered look on his face. He clearly had no idea what Keara was and she was beyond angry that the only thing that could survive her spell had blocked her path to another that couldn’t.

“I said to stay away from him.” Isis body had been shaking with anticipation earlier, now it was shaking out of pure rage. It was so uncontrollable that as she gripped her wand she snapped it in half. It didn’t bother her though. She wouldn’t need it anymore. They wanted the beast. And it wanted them. Her eyes closed. There was no way of stopping it now. All the pent up anger and frustration couldn’t be contained anymore. It had been so easy to control earlier. She had been winning in her fight with Zealon out on the streets. It had even been easy upon entering the bank and causing the chandelier heard around the world. Since Keara had involved herself in her business though, things had been made extraordinarily difficult. Isis didn’t like people who joined in someone else’s fight. She loathed those who kept trying to include themselves when they clearly had no right. Everything Sonnet did had pissed her off. The bloodsucker was making herself a distraction, and Isis had allowed herself to be distracted. Her other side couldn’t handle it anymore. It needed to be unleashed. It needed to get back at the leech the only way that damage could actually be inflicted. It had gotten a taste of the battle taking place all around her and it wanted in. It was flowing through her body, preparing her bones, organs and everything in between for the shift. Even if Isis wanted to stop, it was now impossible.

Her broken wand dropped from her hand as her arms extended to the side. The sound of Isis’ bones popping and cracking to elongate themselves filled the air around her. The movement made her skin look like a bubbling cauldron. Her clothes ripped into shreds as her body expanded every which way. She howled as the knee Centara had kicked earlier cracked. She had gotten used to the pain of shifting with as many years as she had been doing it, but the bloodsucker’s damage had brought memories of her first year and how every part of her body felt like it was being penetrated by spikes that kept going through her. Normally six foot, she was rapidly growing to six foot eight. She could feel every strand of fur pierce through her skin, covering her body in a thick, black color, the same as her hair. Her fingers and toes contorted until they transformed into paws. Her nails stretched out and formed into daggers, turning into vicious looking claws. The most uncomfortable thing of all though was Isis’ head. Her skull had pressure forced on it at every angle while it morphed. It was still odd watching her nose expand into a snout. Her sense of smell was instantly magnified. She could smell the blood running across the tile, the beads of sweat dropping onto the floor from weary fighters and the brimstone smell of curse remnants from wands. Besides that, everything else was heightened. She was aware of her surroundings and anything taking place in them. The sound in the lobby was nearly deafening. Fortunately for her, after much guidance from Osi, she had learned how to tune everything out except for her prey.

The transformation was complete. Screams erupted from all over as people scattered every which way, temporarily halting all fighting. A smile formed on her deformed features. Falling to all fours Isis glared at the not-so happy couple. Attack. Lowering her torso down the floor she prepared herself to pounce. The man had yet to move, still shocked by the discovery of his girlfriend’s true side. Keara returned her glare, looking ready to attack herself. Ready. She growled. Set. She lowered herself even further to the ground. Go. With that, Isis pounced and as if having the same intuition, so did the leech. However, she had more momentum behind her liftoff. Her paws landed on the vampire’s chest, knocking her back down to the ground and Isis on top of her. Bringing her arm back, she swiped at the bloodsucker’s right arm, digging her claws into the flesh and leaving four long red lines in her wake. Knowing that her opponent had been weakened she snapped once at the woman before pushing down on her stomach and jumping off. She howled in satisfaction. Her gaze averted back to the man. He looked horrified. As much as she wanted to rip him from limb to limb, he was too easy. The beast wanted a challenge and the only one who could offer her such was Wentworth. She needed to find him. Sending one last growl in his direction, she turned and set off in search of her next victim.

[Ashton Wentworth]

As fate would have it, he was never meant to make it back over to Isis, he had hardly made it three more feet in his path before something came from below. The ground started to shake, were they having an earthquake? What was happening? He couldn't move, he was rooted to the spot, the people around him seemed to have the same concern that he did, glancing in the direction of the vault entrance, hoping for some explanation. It had to be the goblins, doing something because they didn't like the wizards inside of the bank or what they were doing. If this was their form of retaliation it was unacceptable, they should know that the Ministry had protocols for things like this. Staggering over to a desk he grasped onto the edge of the remnants of the polished granite countertop his arms shaking from the rumble. A loud noise was coming, he had no idea what could be causing it and he didn't really want to find out. Glancing around he didn't see anybody fighting for that split second, he wouldn't be surprised if the noise was audible outside. Then it happened. From the back of the bank, the floor came up in a large chunk, falling to the ground and shattering into smaller chunks, hitting various people on the way. Covering his head with his arms he hoped nothing would make it this far. He glanced up just long enough to see the tail end of a dragon dissapearing out of the new hole in the ceiling. All structural integrity was just lost. The thing veered around the dark mark which was now clearly visible through the top of the bank. He had forgotten that Dragons lived under the ground in the vaults here, they had to be fed up with all the spells by now, thankfully it was only the one so far. Must have knocked out a few vaults on it's way up because coins were starting to litter the floor. Galleons were raining from the sky, catching the bits of light left in the sky, and pelting the few remaining people inside all over. He felt sorry for the people who's vaults were just compromised, and he could only hope that money crazed fools didn't start to come back in to get a handout. The areas of wall that were still standing weren't going to hold up for much longer. Turning away from the desk he was clutching he only had one thing on his mind.

Kaydence. She was still in here somewhere, he knew she was too stubborn to leave even if it was good for her. His heart started to pound within his chest. He could only imagine what trouble that she was getting into, and if the building was going down, he didn't want it to go down with her in it. The rest could be replaced, she couldn't. Forgetting his earlier anger with her, he didn't wish her to die because he was overly judgmental, she had saved his life after all, not only moments before in fact and he could blame his concern on the fact that he owed her one for that. The roof was starting to give. He had hardly made it three paces in the direction that he was wanting to go before something fell from above his head and hit him on the shoulder. Causing him to fall to his knees. It was painful, but not unbearable, until another one fell and hit him directly on the back of his leg, he could feel the pain resonate through his leg and up to his knee. This was going to be a problem, forcing himself to stand, he attempted to put weight on the leg and walk properly, but it was causing him instant problems. Limping he placed a hand on top of his thigh to keep from toppling over. The ceiling was finally giving in, the walls were starting to crumble and it would only be a few more minutes before larger chunks would start to fall down. Luckily, most of the civilians were already outside and it was just the ministry and Death Eaters still inside. Waving his arm in front of his body to clear the smoke out of his immediate line of sight he coughed, wanting to expel the debris from his body. He couldn't see a damned thing any longer, other than random flashes of light. Holding out his wand in front of him, things seemed to be dying down, less shouting, the spells were starting to thin out, no doubt people were starting to fear for their own lives and getting the heck out of dodge. He hoped that his coworkers outside were doing their job and that he wouldn't have anything to do once he got out of here other than deal with Kaydence and let his body heal. Even the idea of laying in a pristine hospital bed with people waiting on him hand and foot sounded damn appealing. He sent a mist of water shooting from the end of his wand, the water droplets clung to the dust and matter in the air and caused them to drop, it was doing wonders to help him see more than a couple of feet ahead of him. He had to be standing near the middle of the room now, was Kaydence where he had seen her last? If so he needed to go right, turning in the direction he limped slowly, hands stretched out in front of him in case he came across anybody, he was no longer going to hex to maim, he was going to curse to kill.

Things were going alright, that was, until he heard her scream. Limping as quickly as his knee would allow him, it turned out to be a half hobble half jog and he closed the distance just in time to watch the wall crumble. He hated that he knew exactly what her screams sounded like. That he was able to pick her voice out amongst the dozens of other cries happening at any given time. His heart stopped. For just a moment he felt like he was dying along with her, all the pain left his body and he grew shockingly cold. He wanted to help her but couldn't see anything that he could do. His whole body kicked into action before he was able to think about it rationally. He knew that the chances that she would have been able to survive something like a wall crumbling on top of her were very low, but he had to see. The dust wasn't settling, he needed to know what was happening and he couldn't see a damned thing. Panic was oozing out of every pore in his body. Pushing a person out of the way as he moved, not bothering to care if he fell to the ground and was trampled, not job no longer existed. The people around him no longer existed, it was just him and that wall. As he grew closer he could hear her whimper, and he saw her leg crushed beneath an impossibly large chunk of stone. If her leg wasn't crushed it would be a miracle. He saw her hands working to free her leg, which was good because that meant she wasn't in shock, he was about a yard away from her whenever somebody stepped in his path. This certainly wasn't a good day in the world of Kaydence. Luckily for her, he was here. Pointing his wand at the intruder he shouted a little too loudly, the spell was going to pack a bit more of a punch than he had intended, but his whole wrath was behind it "STUPEFY" as the body flew backwards he was the glimmer of a badge similar to his own before a piece of ceiling fell in the direction that he had fallen. Great. He had attacked an official, that was certainly not going to help his case once he got back to the office in the least bit. He hesitated, wanting to see who it was, and hoping that the person hadn't seen his face or be able to identify him in any way. He felt pangs of guilt, but it was quickly washed away by the sound of a second scream coming from the girl he had just defended. Spinning quickly in her direction he was glad that she had the strength to scream, most women would have just passed out from pain like that, or just out of shock. He wouldn't blame her if she did, it would just be self preservation.

Whenever he saw her concentrated look of frustration as she pushed at object on her leg, he could have laughed. Sighing in relief whenever his lungs allowed him to breath again he rushed to her side, leaving his wounded leg as straight as he could he crouched on his good leg, he could feel his arms straining to lift the weight of the first boulder, his ribs threatening to hurt his lungs as he did so. He hadn't realized just how tired he was until now, wincing as he could only imagine what she must be feeling he tossed the first chunk of stone off behind him, it made a resonant thud a foot behind him. It certainly hadn't gone far. Lifting a grim covered hand to hr face he placed the back of his fingers against her cheek, and managed a small smile. "This isn't going to feel good" he would be angry with her once he knew that she was going to live. Positioning his body into a better leverage point he grunted as he lifted the second one, against tossing it only a foot behind him, he heard the two hit each other upon impact. Bending to reach the hem of her pants, he grasped the fabric firmly, then pulled. The fabric yielded, tearing open at the seam. She would no doubt be angry that he was ruining another one of her things, but her leg would be thankful for the breathing room. Pulling the denim out of the way with as much tenderness as he had left in him. Her leg was already filling with blood as it attempted to overcompensate, it was going to swell like no one's business and it was going to have to be drained. He doubted she knew exactly how bad a crush wound like this could be, she would have been better off it the bone had punctured the skin, then at least the blood would have a place to go. His sharp intake of breath made a hissing sound. He turned to her, "was this because of him?" he didn't really want an answer, he didn't need one. No matter what she said it wouldn't stop him. He started to rise to his feet, wanting to pummel the man he had just blasted into the stone, perhaps drop one of those stones on his head. He didn't care what she said, even if she was a liar, just because he didn't want to have anything to do with her, didn't mean that anybody else was allowed to be near her. Much less harm her. He felt her fingers wrap around his forearm, stopping him. Turning back to look at her, concern flushed across his face. Why on earth was she stopping him? He felt her pull him as close as she could, her face full of pain. He wasn't sure if it was because of her leg or if it was because of something else. He gave in without protest, allowing her to connect their faces at the lips for only a moment. He couldn't be sure, but it sure felt a lot like goodbye.

[Joshua O'Neill]

Joshua O'Neill

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I'll have you know that
I've become indestructible
Determination that is incorruptable
On the other side a terror to behold
Annihilation will be unavoidable[/center]

He knew what was going on, but for some reason Josh had yet to make his presence felt. He had heard quickly that a battle was waging, with both sides openly fighting inside Gringotts. He had gotten ready, throwing a light blue cloak on, one that many of the others he expected to be there would easily recognize. He had worn the same cloak for a few years, passing on new cloaks in favor of his old favorite. It bore his school colors, and subtly reminded him of simpler times, when his biggest concern was whether he would be able to get Gillian to reciprocate his feelings or not. He apparated with a barely audible pop, appearing across the street from Gringotts. He was far enough away to be out of the fray, yet close enough to see everything unfolding. This would be his chance, the chance he had been longing for. He would be able to make an impact, to make everyone else notice his greatness.

He drew his wand in one fluid motion, leveling it before him as his eyes scanned the battlefield. He had always been a loose cannon, unaffiliated and rather unreliable. He mutter curses quickly, blasting away at both ministry workers and death eaters alike. He didn't care who he attacked, not anymore. He had been put on the outside of the group of those that he had formerly called friends, and now he didn't care who he hurt. Many of the people present that he knew were busy dueling, and for a moment he considered interrupting some of them. There were a few that he would love to lash out at, and this would be his perfect opportunity. His decision though, became easier as he continued to look around. Seemingly off in their own little world, Juliet stood alone with Damien. He was dressed in Death Eater attire, which didn't come as a very big surprise to Josh. Monroe had always struck him as the evil git type, although the fact that he could stay sober long enough to duel anyone was quite impressive.

For what it was worth, Josh felt a pang of guilt for his thoughts. Juliet had never shown him any lack of kindness. Quite the contrary, he had been one of the few to attend a small party at her house only a few years ago, the last time the two of them had been in close proximity. While they had never been close, he had always liked the girl. She was one of the few caring individuals he had met during his time at the school, so the thought of draining her of her blood almost bothered him. In the end his bloodlust and cold nature won out, and he moved slowly, licking his lips as he walked toward them. He absentmindedly deflected a stray curse, and had he known where it had originated from he would have taken his aggression out on them. As he got closer, his vampiric instinct took over, his senses heightening. He could hear her heartbeat, even among the crowd, and he could see the faint outline of a vein in her neck. Her blood would be sweet, of that much at least he was certain.

He considered pouncing on her, the way any other predator would attack their prey. He however, had an ace up his sleeve. He had no need to exert himself, as he could merely curse her into paralysis, and then feed from her frozen form. His eyes narrowed and a smirk drew to his face as he aimed his wand at her, his lust for her blood completely overpowering his reason. "Petrificus Totalus." A jet of light shot forward, only to fade out before it hit her. A look of shock took hold of him momentarily, unsure of what had happened. It was only then that he noticed Monroe's wand raised, and he put two and two together. He must have deflected the curse, it was the only thing that made sense. If he wanted to die as well, and badly enough to cross Josh, then he supposed that he would oblige him. "That'll be the last mistake you make Monroe. Never interfere with a hunter and his prey."

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tag ,, Damien !
status ,, Complete !
word count ,, 710 !
music ,, Moves Like Jagger - Maroon 5 ft Christina !
misc ,, Hope it's not too bad, I haven't gotten a good post in awhile
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[Keara Sonnet]

From where she stood, Keara couldn’t see the look on Tristan’s face, but she was quite sure her imagination was awfully close to the truth. She hadn’t told him about her being a vampire and she hadn’t wanted him to find out yet. All intentions had been to take him to where she was ‘born’ and show him around her town in Italy, hoping he would get a hint of her heritage with the age of the building and somehow manage to figure out that the buildings had been condemned for far longer than her age showed. Then she would ease him into the story, let him know that she had no intentions of leading him on but because he was Ministry, she couldn’t jump into that too fast. She was too careful to keep from being caught and registered. Maybe she would even inform him of why if he took the news well. If she had maybe one more month with him, she probably would have done so. However, now she didn’t quite have the opportunity to ease into it. Keara had just died right in front of him, taking a killing curse in order to ensure he survived Isis’ attack. It probably was not the best way to show him what she truly was, but there was no way he was about to be a casualty in this battle.

Despite her curiosity to see the look on Tristan’s face and to start explaining, she had something far more important that she had to deal with first. Isis was not going to let that interruption go down easy and she had to get ready for some sort of backlash. Tristan would just have to wait until Isis had diverted her attention from the two. And from the looks of things, it was going to take a bit for that to happen. A moment later, the sound of cracking bones came to Keara’s ears. Her eyes narrowed as the fur started to grow from Isis’ once tan skin. Her clothes ripped to shreds and fell to the ground in pieces. The claws that Keara had always avoided and the teeth she had never encountered grew longer and more apparent against the jet black fur. The height difference had become more apparent than it had been before, but there was no intimidation on Keara’s face. She had faced Diego in the past, though on friendlier terms, and had come out perfectly fine. Isis was nothing near as bad as Diego. The only problem she would have was the fact that now, unlike with Diego, she had something to protect. She wasn’t going to let Isis, especially in this form, get to Tristan. Now she could turn him with a simple bite and she would not have that. Bearing her own fangs, Keara hissed when Isis began to move closer. She hoped somehow Isis would turn around and go elsewhere, but that wasn’t the case.

A moment later, Isis lunged in the direction of the couple and Keara matched the lunge. They collided in midair but, at the advantage of the wolves, Isis had more power in her legs than Keara could muster. The sound of the collision between forces was followed by the sound of Keara colliding with the marble floor. That which had already been damaged earlier by Isis’ attack on Tristan only cracked further under the pressure. More marble dust flew into the air, as Keara attempted to push the werewolf off of her, however before she could act, one of Isis’ paws raised into the air and came back. Keara tried to roll away from the attack but one paw was still on her chest, only allowing her to turn slightly which resulted in Isis’ claw digging into her right arm. A muffled scream emitted from Keara’s mouth as she bit down on her tongue to try and avoid letting much more out. Her eyes squinted shut as Isis’ pushed her paws back down onto Keara’s chest, obviously proud of what she had just done which was obvious in the howl that came from her jaws. When she pushed off, Keara’s eyes opened and tracked the wolf as she propped herself up on her left side. She would not allow her to land another blow. But, fortunately, Isis had turned in the either direction to find a fight. Keara had no interest in fighting the wolf and never had. Isis had been the instigator and now, after defending Tristan from the wolf, Keara was damaged goods. Never before had a werewolf claw landed on her. Her skin was flawless no longer.

She managed to sit up from where she had landed. Looking over to her arm, she reached over with her left fingers and touched the wound, blood came off on her fingertips. Damage from a werewolf did not heal nearly as fast as any other injuries so the blood flow was not going to stop anytime soon unless she did something about it. She couldn’t focus on that anymore, though. Her eyes moved from her damaged arm and over to where Tristan was now standing. He had moved closer to her, but his eyes bore down on her. She wasn’t able to read what he was thinking as she wished she could, but there was really only one thing she could think to say. “Tristan, I’m so sorry.”

[Centara Zealon]

Sitting against the wall was probably the most vulnerable Centara had ever felt since she had been sired. She had the upper hand during the Masquerade attack at all times, never fell to another vampire, and certainly never fell to a human. She had only fallen to Diego but he hadn’t taken advantage of it. Instead, he had looked at her with eyes full of pity, knowing full well that Cen had thought she was more than what she actually was. He knew that the vampire would fail again because she would train and then think she was invincible. And that was exactly what had happened. After her bout in Transylvania, she had trained non-stop to get her skills up, but her ego had risen with those skills and that was why she sat here against the wall today. Her ego had pushed her to egg on the fight with Isis to the point where she wasn’t able to handle it, but she wouldn’t admit it at the time. Now that she was bleeding all over herself, she was not afraid to admit that she was stupid. That she was just asking to be brought down a notch and shoved against a wall to rot. Her head was still in her hands as she attempted to regain her composure completely, to understand what was going to happen from this point on but that didn’t mean she didn’t hear him. Of course, she didn’t know who ‘him’ was, she just knew that someone was watching her and she was not pleased about it.

When she looked up to look at the man across from her, she realized he knew what he was doing. He wasn’t stupid. He had kept his distance because he knew exactly what she was capable of. Centara had no idea who this man was, but he had apparently figured out what she was. Her hands dropped to the ground next to her as he spoke up. “Excuse me?” Centara asked, raising an eyebrow as her hands turned into fists. His tone was different from what she would expect from his exterior. It was soft and welcoming in the middle of a war, but the fact that he had just told her to get up baffled her. Did he not realize that she had tried that already? That her head was swimming too much from the pain in her shoulder to walk away from the standing position she had managed? "You're not done" There he went again, telling her something she knew but couldn’t do anything about. She knew she had to get up and she knew she wasn’t done, but with her damaged shoulder, she couldn’t do either of those acts. When he began to move, Centara’s body only tensed up. He may not sound threatening, but that didn’t make one bit of difference. She had only wished that she had seen him before this moment so she could know what side he was on. He didn’t look like Ministry, but then again she had also known the majority of Darren’s followers. Was he a new addition to the team in the last 3 years?

Her eyes followed him as he came to her side. This was starting to make her slightly uncomfortable. She was used to men staring at her but it was usually because she was attractive, not because she was wounded. However, his focus seemed to be on her shoulder more than anything else. The only people she had ever seen who focused on wounds were vampires and wolves who were looking for the blood. He was neither, however. She attempted to get up once again just so she could put some distance between the two of them but the moment she put pressure on her arm, the searing pain came back through her shoulder, causing her to collapse back where she sat. Her eyes squinted shut as she waited for the pain to subside again. Before she knew what was happening behind those closed lids, she felt fingers touch her wound. Her eyes shot open as the pain got worse. The touching of one’s raw skin never really did make for a good feeling. She looked over at him, just as he pulled away his hand, covered in her blood. “What the hell are you doing?” she questioned, attempting to move again but only managing to move an inch before she couldn’t stand the pain on her shoulder. She literally was a wreck and this guy was taking complete advantage of that.

Again he had moved but this time coming closer to her side and she had nothing that she could do to keep it from happening. His wand was out in seconds and was pressed into her wound and it took every fiber of her being not to slash her claws across his face. The pain of the wand on her bone wasn’t as bad as some may think it was, but a moment later the pain was alleviated. His wand came out of the wound and all of a sudden it was as if it hadn’t existed. Her hand went for her shoulder and she could feel her flawless skin was back despite the amount of blood surrounding where the wound had just been. Her eyes looked at him with bewilderment. "I will expect great things from you now." All of a sudden his demeanor had changed. He was serious rather than sweet, and without giving her a moment to even as him what he was playing at, he had stood up and walked away from her. “Hold it,” she said, a slight touch of anger in her tone as she stood up quickly. No doubt if he hadn’t healed her arm, she would have collapsed once more but she felt as good as new. The biggest wound on her body was healed, and the rest of her cuts were already closed. The wonders of being a vampire could never be rivaled.

It did not take much for her to catch up with him considering her speed and within a moment she was standing in front of him. “Who the hell are you and what was that about?” she asked, her eyes narrowed. She had all intentions of figuring this out, but that was until she heard the howl and smelled the fur. Her eyes widened as she looked through the dust and saw the full figure of Isis Moswen. She had transformed and it looked like Kea was stuck right in the middle of it. “I’m not done with you,” Centara muttered, walking away from him in the direction of the wolf. Isis had turned away at that moment, leaving Kea on the ground, still moving. That meant Keara was alive, but Isis still needed to be killed. She was not going to walk away from this battle alive, especially not after the damage she had dealt to Centara. Now that Cen had regrouped and realized what needed to be done to win this battle, she was ready to take on Isis and take her down. That was when the dragon popped out. Centara was taken off guard with the rumbling of the floor. She almost lost her footing but was able to recover with ease, watching as part of the roof collapsed above them. This place was going down and she was not about to be here to watch it happen. Isis wasn’t worth being buried in this rubble, just waiting for the Ministry to dig her out.

[Damien Monroe]

Damien was slightly hurt that Juliet was looking at him with such weariness. He knew she had every right to be. He had never told her of his darker side. Then again, he wasn’t supposed to. DeathEaters couldn’t just go around to everyone exposing the dark marks on their arms or announcing it in the middle of a busy street. She had to understand that he wasn’t able to for a reason. His life would be at stake if he revealed his other side to anyone not closely associated with Darren. He liked his life too much to just throw it all away with a simple slip of the tongue. Though this was going to push up the talk he had been hoping to avoid for as long as he could. Damien still wasn’t sure if Juliet knew why her manor had been ransacked, but if she did she’d be able to put two and two together. She was one of the last people he ever wanted to hurt. Now it seemed unavoidable. He didn’t know if it was her shock, whatever injury she had sustained, or both, but the longer she kept looking at him like that, the more nervous he got. He had no idea if she would actually curse him or not, but it didn’t look promising considering the two wands in her hands were both pointed at him. He’d feel just as confused if he were in her situation. Hell, he was confused with everything that was going on. Damien had no idea what had even started this battle. He had just arrived when it had already started. If he hadn’t been summoned, he probably wouldn’t have known about it until he went drinking later on in the night, which was something he was going to start doing as soon as he finished here.

“I don’t think you’re stupid,” Damien finally said, ducking slightly as a piece of marble came soaring past him. “I’m just trying to tell you that I can probably defend you better than you can defend yourself right now.” His eyes began to plead with her to reconsider. She needed to know that he really did have her best interests at heart. With her continued eye closing and looks of pain, he knew he needed to get her out of here more than ever. Juliet needed to stop being so stubborn. He had never done anything to ever insinuate to her that he had ulterior motives for being around her. Now was no different. For Merlin’s sake he had stunned one of his own that had tried to go after her. That kind of behavior wouldn’t have sat well with Darren, wherever he was. If that wasn’t looking out for her then he didn’t know what was. Damien grimaced as she scoffed him off. It wasn’t the best time to try and joke around, he was aware of that. However, his only intentions were to get Juliet to trust him enough to let him have his wand back. The longer he stood here undefended, the more his chance of injury grew. His eyes widened as Juliet raised her own wand close to his head. So maybe she was distrustful enough to hex him into oblivion. “Juliet, I…” ”STUPEFY!” His eyes closed tightly, but his body never fell. Opening one slowly, he turned his head to see the direction her spell had gone. An Auror lay unconscious behind him. Damien chuckled nervously as he looked back to Juliet. “That was quite a scare.”

”MORSMORDE!” Damien was very familiar with the spell caster’s voice as it had yelled at him time and time again. Darren had confirmed his presence as well as the impact the DeathEaters were having on the battle. It was hard to see how victorious anyone was given the thick smoke clouds, but it was obvious that there were more hooded figures wandering about then those who weren’t. The Dark Mark was going to instill even more terror in the hearts of citizens who were watching from the outside or raise questions from those who hadn’t even heard of the battle taking place yet. If they hadn’t done it already, this was going to force the Ministry to see how serious things were and the influx of reinforcement was inevitable. “Juliet,” he raised his voice, extending his right hand in her direction, “please. Give me my wand. I know you heard that and I know you know what it means. You have got to let me get you out of here before they send more troops. If we don’t get out of here now, it’s going to be damn near impossible to do so in a couple of minutes.” Damien’s voice was beginning to have a frantic tone to it. Given that he was normally calm and collected, she had to notice it and realize that he knew what he was talking about. The last fight he had been in that required the use of wands had been in the Masquerade. Although he had confidence in his skill with a wand, he was going to be rusty, especially since he hadn’t even expected to apparate into this. DeathEaters were supposed to be prepared for anything, but so much time had passed that he had foolishly let his guard down.

A low rumbling began shaking the floor. Damien’s panic intensified. What the hell was happening now? The rumbling got louder and everyone around him had seemed to notice. Spells were still being cast in every direction, but a few of the fights had paused momentarily to look around nervously. Something was coming from the floor and the only question was where it would be coming up from. His question was answered a few seconds later. From the back of the lobby that led to the mine carts, the floor in front of the entrance to the vaults exploded and a ridiculously large brown dragon came flying out of it, the metal collar with the chain still attached to it. He had forgotten that dragons guarded the vaults from intruders and thief’s. Damien had only seen a dragon once before. He and Isis had been sent to the outskirts of Bulgaria to meet with a man he, at the time, didn’t know was a dragon tamer. As soon as he neared the cave where the man was expecting them, a Hungarian Horntail, who clearly should not have been in Bulgaria, came waddling out. Isis had gotten quite the laugh at his expense and it left him with a bad taste in his mouth for the creatures. This one seemed more intent on escaping, but he still covered his head out of instinct. It flew up into the ceiling and created a hole bigger than the one that had once been the entrance to Gringotts. “WHAT THE HELL?!” he yelled, still covering his head, though now out of protection from the pieces of the roof that had begun falling and the extensive amount of coins the dragon had brought from down below in his wake. Could this situation get any worse?

Juliet’s voice finally broke his thoughts. ”This discussion is not over.” Breathing heavily, Damien shook his head. “I didn’t say that it was. This just isn’t the place!” He removed one hand from his head and brought it back to her. "And I swear to God, if you screw me over, I will come back to haunt you and make your life miserable from my grave, clear?" It had not been the first time he had heard that kind of thread from a girl and presumably wouldn’t be the last. “YES!” Fights had resumed and one in particular was getting too close to the two of them for his liking. “COME ON JULIET!” The suspicious look on her face didn’t waver, but much to his relief, she was finally offering his wand back to him. Damien took it without hesitation. A cracking sound from above him caused him to look up. A large piece of ceiling was falling towards them and fast. Pushing Juliet against the pillar, he shielded her body with his own. The rock landed only inches behind his legs causing the floor to shake lightly upon impact. Pulling himself away from Juliet, he still kept his arms around her. Looking around, he began to try and size up their best path of escape. It was damn near impossible given that every route seemed to intersect a fight or a pile of rubble blocking any exist. Groaning, he kept looking, persistent on finding a way out of this war zone. Then he found it. It was a small hole on the opposite wall, but big enough for both of their bodies to fit through. It would be dangerous crossing the hall but it was their only chance for escape. Damien had to take it.

Tightening his hand around his wand, he grabbed her by her shoulders and looked her dead in the eye. “Follow my lead, alright? Whatever you do, don’t let go of my hand. Got it?” Once she nodded in agreement, Damien responded with his own nod. “Right.” Pulling her off of the pillar, he took her hand in his own and moved them around the rock. They hadn’t gone more than five steps when he saw a spell heading straight for Juliet. Pointing his wand in direction of it, he blocked it. “FINITE!” The light faded almost as quickly as he seen it. The smoke cleared enough for him to see the figure who had cast it. Furrowing his brow, pressed his back against Juliet. It was O’Neill. He never spoke too much to the kid back in his school years, but they had been involved in their own lives to never have intruded on the other’s business. Damien was unsure of why the man had chosen Juliet as his target, but he would be damned before he allowed the prat to cause any harm on her. “I got this,” he whispered, stepping forward from his friend. He brought his wand back only momentarily. “Protego.” Juliet was now shielded from any other spells O’Neill found necessary to cast in her direction. He gave her a parting look before stepping closer to the advancer. "That'll be the last mistake you make Monroe. Never interfere with a hunter and his prey." Hearing Josh refer to Juliet as prey set something within him off. He was never one who wished violence on women, especially those undeserving as Juliet. Nor did he like his life being threatened. “I think you should pick on someone your own size,” he called back, the two men only feet away from each other now. “Real men defend their women.”

Damien lifted his wand in the man’s direction. Now that they were closer, he noticed how the pale color of his skin resembled Kea and Cen’s. His eyes were unnaturally red and his open mouth exposed vicious fangs. He was a vampire, just like them. He had no idea how to fight vampires. Normally, he was too busy running in the other direction if he came face to face with one whom wasn’t those two ladies. His chances of victory may be slim, but he couldn’t allow O’Neill to get away with attempting to curse Juliet, especially because he doubted that the man would give up just that easily. He was going to go for the big guns not only because of Juliet but because of the scenario they found themselves in. Damien just wanted to get the hell out of here. He swung his wand in direction of the wall next to Josh. “CONFRINGO!” It exploded, sending even more rubble outwards and straight into the vampire’s body. Taking advantage of his surprise, he brought his wand back to the vampire. “CRUCIO!”

[Autumn Stanton]

Upon settling into her station, it had only taken Autumn five minutes before she had her first patient. It was a man who had a nasty gash running across his forehead. Surprisingly, he had still been conscious enough to tell her that the injury had been from a piece of building that had exploded from a fight between two women in Alzubra Alley. Confusion settled on her face. Two women exploding a building? That wasn’t even possible. She then decided that it was probable the man had a concussion and his brain was producing hallucinations. She pondered over it as she pressed a sheet of gauze to the wound to try and stop the bleeding. The fact was that she had no idea what was going on in the alley. All she knew was that the amount of voices in the lobby of the hospital was growing along with the cries and screams of the injured. When the bleeding ceased Autumn lifted the gauze gently and quickly cleaned the wound with a sanitizing solution. She then lifted her wand to the man’s hand and spoke a spell to stitch up the skin. “Stay awake,” she urged him, grabbing three pain pills from another drawer on the rolling cart. “This will make you feel a little light-headed, but you won’t have any more pain.” The man took the pills from her hand and popped them in his mouth. “I’m serious when I say stay awake though. You need to keep consciousness for a little bit to make sure the concussion doesn’t have any deeper effects. I’ll have someone keep an eye on you.” Rolling her stool over to the edge of the curtain, Autumn pulled down on a lamp string to turn it off and indicate that she was finished and ready for another patient. Promptly, a nurse pulled open the curtain and helped the man up. “Don’t let him fall asleep for at least an hour.” The nurse nodded and led the man out. ”Thank you miss.” She smiled and nodded her head.

Another patient appeared a second later. This time it was a girl whose arm hanging at an odd angle. Frowning, she stood up and helped her onto the cot. She walked over to the lamp and switched it on. “Do you mind telling me what happened?” she asked as she settled back into her stool. The young girl whimpered, but nodded. ”There’s a fight in and outside of Gringotts. The Ministry can barely contain all the DeathEaters there. And there’s still people trapped! I was trying to get away from a DeathEater when I fell over a café table and landed on my arm.” Autumn gave the girl a comforting smile, but internally she was frightened. If the battle was as bad as the girl had explained, then the numbers of injured or dead were going to far exceed those of the Minister’s Masquerade those years ago. The situation was that much worse if the Dark Lord’s DeathEaters outnumbered the Ministry’s Aurors. It was hard not to fight the urge to gasp. What if the Dark Lord was there? Her hand began shaking as she gingerly examined the extent of damage to the girl’s arm. He had been at the other attack so he was likely at this one too. It would also explain why there were so many DeathEaters there.

When she finished her examination, Autumn determined that the girl had a minor break. Conjuring up a wooden rod with the Ferula spell, she bound it to the outside of the girl’s fore-arm with some more gauze. She then shifted through her cart until she found a bottle of bone growing potion. “Take this,” she ordered, pouring a little amount into a medicine cup. “It’s not much so it won’t taste as terrible, but it’s just enough to reconnect the bones.” While the girl took the medicine, she pointed the tip of her wand to the area and murmured a charm to shift the bones enough for them to be in a straight line to make the healing process a bit faster. “Good girl,” she complimented, helping her back up to her feet once she had taken the medicine. “I know it was gross, but I promise this is the easiest and quickest way for you to start getting some relief.” She hoped her words would ease the girl’s unhappy look on her face. She had never personally had to taste the bone potion but she had smelled it enough to let it be her motivation to not break any bones of her own. She walked them over to the lamp, switching it off for a nurse to come. Like before, a nurse appeared instantly and took the girl off. ”Thank you so so much. You are the best Healer ever.” Autumn chuckled and waved at the retreating girl’s back. These compliments were going to make things go a lot smoother if they kept up. Retreating back into her station, she stood by the lamp and awaited the next person.

The cycle kept repeating fifteen patients after that one. Autumn treated several more broken bones and gashes. She had needed one help with one man so resistant to receiving treatment that she had needed the assistance of four other Healers to keep him down while she gave him a shot to ease the ghastly swelling in his leg. Each injury was worse than the next. Sighing as wiping her hand with the back of her sleeve, she watched as her last patience was ushered down the hall and to the lifts. The woman had started convulsing during her examination, automatically setting off warning signs to Autumn that the damage was more severe than what could be taken care of down her. The woman was being sent off to one of the rooms upstairs where she could receive better care from the availability and close proximity of supplies. She brought her hands up towards her mouth and folded them together as she looked all around her. The shadows from each individual station were cast on the white curtains from the lights within them. On a few of them, she saw blood stains from those cut worse than others. She was thankful that she hadn’t had any that had been that terrible. Autumn had gotten used to the sight of blood, but excessive amounts still made her queasy. She covered her nose as the stench of it filled her nostrils. The scream that followed soon after indicated that it was a fresh wound. She really felt like she was in a war zone. The curtained-off sections reminded her of the medical tents used to heal the soldiers of war in the books she had read about muggle wars. From what she had read, she determined that she would prefer to stay away from battle. Not be a part of it.

Autumn turned on her heel and had begun to walk back into her station when a voice stopped her. ”Miss. Stanton!” She turned her head towards the voice. “Yes?” A man appeared holding a clipboard. ”Miss. Stanton, I’ve been asked to come and get you. Your presence is being requested the Chief of Healers. Her brow arched. “What do you mean? I have patients. I’m due to get another one any minute now.” The man shook his head. ”Your services are no longer needed down here Miss. Stanton. If you will please follow me.” The confusion instantly dropped from her face. She was being relocated, but to where? Autumn had an awful feeling that she knew. Taking her gloves off, she tossed them into the nearest garbage bin and followed after the man. He led her out through the sliding doors and off to the side in front of the hospital where a group of ten other Healers stood waiting by their superior. ”Do we have the last one then? Great.” The Chief of Healers turned his head towards the group. ”Ladies and gentlemen. Things have taken a turn for the worse at Gringotts bank. The Ministry is requesting more Healers on site to get the wounded out of there since they need every man and woman on the force to defend the bank and the citizens. You will be apparated to the designated safety zone where a Ministry official will give you further directions. Some of you will rescue the injured and bring them back to the others who will apparate them back here and then return to bring more back.” The man paused long enough to let his words sink in. ”I know you all are scared, but we have to remember that it is our job to save lives. These people need us and we must do what needs to be done to get them here safely. If you will all please separate into two groups of five, these two gentlemen will apparate you.” Autumn looked over at the two Ministry officials assigned for transportation. They looked more like they should have been entering the hospital as opposed to leaving it. ”Quickly!”

The Healers shuffled towards the left or the right. Once in her group, one of the officials placed a cane in the middle. ”We’ve made portkeys to get bigger groups over to the bank. Everyone please take hold.” Autumn reluctantly grabbed the end. Everything was going so fast that she could barely keep up. She was about to go into the line of fire. Any security she had would be gone. If she didn’t watch every step she made, she’d be done for, victim of another stray spell or worse. She did her best to remember everything the chief had said. This was to save people’s lives. It was okay to be scared, but this was her job. Though she couldn’t deny the feeling of uneasiness that came over her as she looked back towards the entrance and saw pairs of Healers carting long and heavy-looking black bags into the hospitals. She shuttered as she noticed a pair carrying a body on a board covered only by a sheet. One of its arms had been dislodged in the movement and swung lightly off to the side. Things were as serious as they were being made out to be. ”Is everyone ready?” No she thought to herself, swallowing nervously and nodding. Gripping on to the cane Autumn closed her eyes as she felt a tug from her wrist and her feet lift from the ground.

Her ears were greeted with the sound of explosions and screams as bad the ones back at St. Everdines. Opening her eyes, Autumn gasped at the sight before her. They had been transported to a side alley so their vision was limited, but she could see the billowing smoke and buildings caught on fire. Bodies laid lifelessly on the cobblestone as spells went back and forth over them. What really made her eyes widen in fright was when she looked over Gringotts. The once massive and intimidating building was lined with cracks and several sides were nothing more than rubble. Gleaming above everything was the Dark Mark. Her hand covered her mouth as everyone around her had the same reaction. Things were beyond serious. They were critical. Everyone who wasn’t a DeathEater was in danger. A popping sound from behind the group indicated that the other group had arrived. ”Everyone please look our way!” Her group’s Ministry official stood in front of them. ”As you can see the situation doesn’t appear to be getting any better. We need to get moving now. I need all but one man to follow us. He will stay behind to defend the women if necessary. I need two women to do on site care while the others apparate the victims we bring. Stay together. Don’t stray and most importantly, be aware of your surroundings.” With that, four men and the other Ministry official joined the one that had just spoken. In an instant, they were gone. Looking around, everyone was still in a state of disbelief. No one appeared to have any desire to make the first move. Autumn was terrified, but she knew that they needed to do whatever they could to help. Stepping forward, she decided to take charge. “I will be one of the Healers to stay. I need someone with me who will remain focused on the mission at hand. If you would feel more comfortable transporting, then you’ll be the ones to apparate.” Every one nodded and a woman she had met once before joined her. ”I’ll do on site as well Autumn.” She nodded in approval. “Let’s do what we came here to do everyone.”

Taking a deep breath, Autumn turned her body around to face the opening of the alley. The first few victims would be here any second. Pushing her sleeves back up to her biceps, she grabbed her wand from her jacket pocket and had it at the ready. The male Healer that had chosen to stay behind pushed his way in front of the woman and stood with his wand pointed outwards. “Breathe,” she told herself, as one of the Ministry officials coat-tails came into view. “Just breathe.”

[Darren Morgan]

It was a scene straight from one of those muggle movies. Darren had his hands in his pockets as he walked slowly around the walls, what was left of them anyway, as the battle raged on around him. Spells constantly flew in his direction but he calmly kept his pace, narrowly avoiding being hit on occasion. For anyone that could see him, he was sure he looked out of place, looking as relaxed as could possibly be. He was in his element. Chaos and panic were what he thrived on. They were the two things that attributed most to his power and the longer it kept surrounding him, the more arrogant he was. His conjuring of the Dark Mark had brought even more DeathEaters out of the woodworks which the Ministry would soon be unable to match unless reinforcements were called. This predicament would require the aid of outside forces without a doubt. Darren was exhilarated. This was the stuff he lived for, that he had promised. It had been years since he had last left his mark on Austria, but this one would sure surpass its processor. It would also cause his numbers to go off the charts again, perhaps more than they had ever been before. Gringotts was supposed to be the most well protected place in the world. Yet here it was in ruins. The pristine marble tiling was cracked in every which way. The walls were slowly crumbling, bound to collapse at any given moment. Its cleanliness was dirtied by smoke, burn marks and blood. Even the goblins had run off, their own lives more important than defending the reputation of the building they centered their lives around. Everything was in shambles and Darren loved it. He had stuck it to the man twice now. He had invaded the Minister’s birthday and now Gringotts, two places that should have had a better defense system.

As he thought about the Minister, he wondered where he was. Darren had seen no sign of Raghnall since any of this had started. Then again, no one had seen signed of their precious Minister since the Masquerade. He was probably hiding behind his desk or had apparated back home to pack his things and flee the country. Any hopes of re-election would be shattered after the rest of the country heard about what had happened today. Hell, he would be surprised if Raghnall wasn’t impeached before the day was over with. Even if the prat had decided to show his face, it wouldn’t have bided well with voters. Twice now he and his followers had attacked and the Ministry had been completely unprepared for it. Darren recalled the article in the Timestopper he had read last month. The Minister’s disappearance was a frequent topic of conversation and had been more so this year than ever. His assistant had made some bullshit excuse that things were being kept under wraps for the protection of the country. That the Minister and his team of idiots were concocting better defense plans. There would be uproar after this was all over with. Where were those defense plans they had been working on? Why weren’t they put into place? Why was the Dark Lord once again able to succeed in killing and maiming hundreds of innocent civilians? A sinister grin formed on his lips. His name would soon take the place of the mysterious and unknown Dark Lord. He would finally get the credit he had been lusting for over five years now. It was hard to refrain from apparating to the Timestopper offices themselves and demanding his articles began being written on the spot.

His movement stopped when he was suddenly hit in the face by a stream of water. Confused, Darren closed his eyes and ran his hand down his face to wipe the excess liquid off. “What the hell,” he said to himself, looking around for some sort of answer. It was shown to him as he noticed a little girl running off towards the exit. A mediocre spell could have only come from her. Frowning, he turned in her direction to follow her. He hated children. He always had and always would. They were nothing more than nuisances who needed to be put in their place at any and every available opportunity. Now was a better time than ever for this little brat. The floor shaking underneath his feet temporarily stopped him. The shaking only got worse as a noise followed suit. A loud bang from the back of the bank sounded shortly after, followed by the roar of a dragon. Darren began laughing. Things kept getting better every minute. The battle had caused such a disturbance that even the bloody dragons that were supposed to be guarding people’s money wanted out. It was quite the epic scene. A dragon with its chain and collar still attached flying up and breaking out of the ceiling of Gringotts. Pride flooded his veins as the Dark Mark was exposed to every single person fighting in the bank. The eerie sign looking even more intimidating with the serpent sliding in and out of the holes in the skull. The dragon’s departure had also caused a shower of coins to rain down on the war below. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see Kaydence on her hands and knees grabbing at every one she could since she knew the family vault was off limits to her now. Darren thought he had heard her scream, but pushed it from his mind. If that was her, she would be dead before any further assistance would arrive.

He focused his attention back on the little girl. She was getting away. Quickening his pace, Darren continued following after her. When she was within range he raised her arm and pointed his hand at her. “Aguamenti!” His own stream of water shot from his palm, more powerful than the one the girl had cast earlier. She fell as the water hit her and he could hear her whimpers of pain as he approached. He kept the flow of water on her, knowing how painful it must have felt. As he approached the side of her, he noticed that it was the girl whose ball had rolled into his foot earlier. Chuckling, he kept his hand to her. “I would have thought you would have learned your lesson the first time around,” he told her, moving his hand so the water would begin hitting her in the face. “I was gracious enough to do nothing to you and yet you still chose to bother me again. When I was a child, I would never dare to show such stupidity. I suppose whatever I do to you now will be a lesson learned to keep to yourself, won’t it?” Before Darren could find a proper spell, a howl rang through the lobby. He quickly turned to the area where it had come from. He knew that it was Isis, but seeing her in her true form was impressive. He couldn’t see her victims, but he knew Isis well enough to know that she wouldn’t change unless she was provoked to the point of no return. The point had been reached and Merlin help any one that stood in her way.

The water was still dousing the girl in the face. Darren imagined that she felt like she was drowning, unable to breathe as water entered her mouth and nostrils. “What should I do?” he asked her, raising his voice so he was audible to her ears. “Do you want to drown or should I sick my wolf on you? She’s far more wild than I am and loves children. She tells me that they taste better.” The more he thought about Isis though, the angrier he got. He hadn’t forgotten about his weariness of her. He had a gut feeling that Moswen had known about his sister being in the country. If she had been doing her job correctly, she would have known. There was no question about it. His anger intensified the water coming from his palm. If the girl hadn’t felt like she was drowning before, she would now. Moswen had no reason for keeping such a secret from him. Darren didn’t know what intentions she could have, but family was a matter he needed to handle alone. Another howl resounded through the hall. The girl was not a priority for him anymore. Isis was. Closing his hand, the water instantly stopped and the girl began to gasp for air. Lowering his hand to his side, a silver light dropped from his palm, down his leg and to ground. He watched as it looked for an exit and disappeared from the building as it found one. The light would appropriately become a snake as it neared its recipient. He had sent his Patronus off in search of Osiris, Isis’ brother. He wanted the man here to see whatever was about to happen to his sister. She’s out of control. Come and get her at Gringotts. The two sentences were all he had sent to Osiris, but the man would understand the severity of the situation. Darren hoped the man would arrive just in time to see what would become of his sister. All he needed now was her to set herself up for destruction.

“This is the last time I will let you live,” Darren warned the soaking wet girl. “If you do something to me again, I will torture you and then kill you. And if anyone asks you who did this to you, you can tell them Darren Morgan did it.” With that, he turned around sharply and began walking in Isis’ direction, hoping some opportunity would present itself to him. It wouldn’t be easy to curse her while she was in form regardless of the power he held. Something more convenient had to be available to him.

[Deleted]

“As long as you aren’t a vampire or something, I think we’ll be fine.”

Tristan’s comment from the Waterfront replayed over and over in his head. As long as you aren’t a vampire or something. He remembered that the expression on her face hadn’t changed. She was probably good at doing that now considering she had years of experience. The way Keara was handling herself now was proof of that. He had never studied the world of vampires. It wasn’t his thing otherwise he would have interned for the department that handled that. However, he knew enough to know that this hadn’t recently happened. He hadn’t seen any fang marks in her neck or strange behavior to indicate that something had happened to her. She had been this way for awhile. Feeling finally began to come back to him. It was anger. Anger that Keara had kept something like this from him. Anger that she had saved his life. Anger that this insane woman to the side of him had tried to kill him. Tristan had no idea where to even start. He was never one to hurt a woman, but both deserved it. Maybe the one who tried to kill him more so than the one who had hidden what she was from him, but still. He shook his head, trying his best to force his limbs to do some sort of movement, but they offered no response back. They were just as confused as he was. He needed to do something especially knowing that the woman who had tried to kill him was going to be extremely upset that her spell had been blocked. He needed to do anything to get her away from him and to get himself away from Keara.

He had waited too long. The sickening sound of bones cracking filled his ears. Grimacing, Tristan’s arms finally moved enough to let him cover his ears. As he turned in the direction it was coming from, the sight he was met with was equally, if not more, disgusting. Crazy woman was transforming. She had been shorter than him, not by much, but considerably more now that she stood several inches above his head. Her bones were shifting, making her skin look like waves from the ocean. What was really standing out was the black fur that was sprouting and covering the once olive skin. Wentworth may have been the expert on species, but Tristan didn’t need that sort of training to know that the woman was becoming a werewolf. He wanted to look away and avert his eyes from the horrifying sight but he couldn’t. He had never seen a werewolf transformation before and decided that this would be the first and last time he did. There was nothing appealing about an exotic woman sprouting a snout with vicious teeth and pointy ears from her head, nor becoming hairier than he was. Also, he wasn’t a fan of women who could kick more ass than he could. Call it being prideful, but at least he was human. As the sound of bones popping began to fade, Tristan was suddenly overcome with a sense of urgency. The Dark Mark had been cast and a werewolf was standing near him. The battle was about to take yet another turn.

Lowering his hands from his ears Tristan’s body felt like it was finally ready to cooperate. Only problem now was he had no idea how to take down a werewolf. He had heard that they were nearly impossible to defeat with common magical spells. It was also obvious that his strength was nothing compared to hers. He made a mental note to take a trip to the library before the week was over so he could study up on both werewolves and vampires. A growl from the werewolf forced his attention back on her. She was reared and ready for attack. Quickly looking over to Keara, he saw that she was as well. A vampire versus a werewolf was also something he had never seen before. The two wasted no time in lunging at the other. A loud thud sounded as the two made contact and another one when the wolf had the advantage and landed on Keara. Tristan almost stepped forward as the wolf brought its arm back but couldn’t do anything once it sliced Keara’s arm. He couldn’t see the extent of the injury, but judging by the pain on Keara’s face it was bad. The werewolf turned to him once she had finished, looking ready for her to be his next victim. His face was expressionless and he raised his wand at her. It seemed like he would die after all. The wolf must have had a change of heart. Growling once at him, she hopped off of Keara and took off. Tristan didn’t know what had made her change her mind, but he wasn’t going to stand around and wait for her to come back and attempt to finish what he had started.

He was faced with a dilemma. Did he run away and fight off the increasing number of DeathEaters and save a few lives while he was at it? Or did he rescue the girl he thought he had legitimate feelings for? Tristan looked at her. She had sat herself up and was examining the damage. Her cut was oozing blood and deep down he was worried about her. Before he had the chance to think further, the ground began shaking and shortly after the floor exploded a little ways from where he and Keara were at. One of the Gringotts dragons had escaped and was en route to the ceiling for escape. The sound of the ceiling breaking was like a large clap of thunder and Tristan covered his head to avoid falling pieces of rubble. Literally every few minutes something new happened. This was Hell on earth. A piece of rubble landed on his arms, right on top of where his head would have been exposed. He cursed out loud. His wrists had absorbed most of the impact and there was no doubt they’d be bruised the following morning. As badly as he wanted to leave Keara there and force her to deal with the consequences of her actions, the hero in him urged him to at least get her somewhere safety. I’m sure she’s good enough to get out on her own he bitterly thought to himself. However, he walked closer to her until she looked at him, stopping when her mouth opened to speak. “Tristan, I’m so sorry.” An apology was the last thing he wanted to hear from her now. Tristan knew he deserved it, but he didn’t even want to speak to her. She had hurt him more than he cared to admit.

Lowering himself to her, Tristan pulled her up with one arm, fighting the urge not to let another string of expletives come from his mouth due to his throbbing wrists. Grunting, he put the unwounded arm around his shoulder and dragged her as quickly as he could to one of the sides. They had to dodge so many pieces of falling rubble that it seemed impossible for them to get to safety without any sort of damage themselves but they finally made it. Tristan released Keara a little too forcefully, watching as her back hit the wall he had brought her too. Placing his hands on either side of his head, he glared at her. He had never been this aggressive with a woman. It wasn’t in his nature. However, anytime he had been in a relationship, he had made the woman he was dating know that he didn’t put up with lying and secret-keeping. If she found that necessary, then he found it necessary that the two probably shouldn’t be dating. Keara hadn’t just forgot to tell him that she had some crazed ex-boyfriend or that she had a life-threatening disease, she had kept from him that she was a vampire. Tristan had never even contemplated dating a vampire. He was more irritated that all of the signs had been there yet he been too oblivious to really take notice. He had commented on her cold body temperature often, but there were people in the world that just had really bad circulation. His fist began involuntarily balling up. All of it was nothing compared to what was really bothering him. The other thing he knew about vampires was their seduction ability. His mind once again went back to the Waterfront, the moment he had suddenly been overwhelmed with feelings for Keara. It had all been an act. She had been seducing him all these weeks for her own advantage. Lowering his head his body shook out of anger.

All the thoughts and flashbacks of their time together just kept coming and it felt like nothing could be done to fix it. As if it had a mind of its own Tristan’s arm brought itself behind him. A moment later, his fist went sailing into the wall next to her head. The pain in his hand and wrist was numbing, but it was nothing compared to the pain Keara had caused him. He began breathing heavily as his arm dropped back down to his side. The wall had an indent from his knuckles. “Is there anything else you’d like to enlighten me of?” he questioned dangerously, still looking at the ground. “Are you working for the Dark Lord? Was I just a fucking puppet?” Tristan brought his eyes back to hers. “TELL ME!” He knew he was upsetting her but he didn’t care. She deserved it for making him find out about her this way. “All I asked you was for you to be up front with me. I haven’t lied or kept anything from you. Anytime you had a question, I answered it. WHY COULDN’T YOU JUST DO THE SAME?” His hand was aching so bad that he wouldn’t have been surprised if it was getting ready to fall out, but yet it was yearning to hit the wall again out of pure frustrating. “I’m done,” he said slowly, “I’m done and I don’t want to speak to you ever again. Go find some other unsuspecting sap to fall under your spell and save his life. I don’t need it.” Pushing himself from the wall, Tristan spat at her feet. He needed to find some other outlet for the rage running wild through his body. As soon as he heard that same howl from earlier off into the distance, he found it. Without another word, he ran off in search of the werewolf that had tried to kill him.

Tristan had to keep dodging falling pieces of rubble. Hooded figures tried to block his path, but he shot them out of the way with whatever spells that came to his mind. It took another minute or two but he finally found the werewolf advancing on an already injured woman. Snarling, he snapped his wand at the wolf. “SECTUMSEMPRA!"

[Keara Sonnet]

The scratch on her arm was nowhere near as painful as looking into Tristan’s eyes. It was obvious she had hurt him and she had never meant for that to happen, but he had no idea what he had just found out. He had no idea what sort of trouble Keara had gone through to hide her secret from the Ministry for the majority of her life. She was not about to waste all that time and work on a man from the Ministry that she had a crush on. Yes, she had felt like it was more than just a crush, but she was not going to chance telling him and it end up being a fluke. However with the look in his eyes, she almost wished she had just sucked it up and told him everything. At this moment, for some reason, she wanted to. She wanted to just blurt out her life story even though she was sure every Ministry Official in the building would be all over her if she did. When he bent down and helped her to her feet, she cringed at the initial movement of her arm. Though the pain was not bad, it still hurt to flex that arm in any way, keeping in mind in the future to keep that arm as stable as possible. She was completely capable of walking on her own considering her arm was the only thing that was hurt, but she wasn’t going to inform him of that. He was obviously upset and she was not about to make that worse. The two moved quickly off to the side and she almost wished that they hadn’t because a moment later, he had let her go and it was almost like he had pushed her into the wall. When her back hit, her arm recoiled to prevent it from hitting as well.

Kea’s eyes searched Tristan’s for any sign that he wasn’t going to just going to hate her forever, however she couldn’t find a single sign of that. She had left out the biggest piece of information about herself and it was obvious that he wasn’t going to accept that. It made her wonder if he would have even accepted her to begin with. If she had admitted what she was to him, chances were he probably would have dumped her right then and there. He probably would have also gone to whoever it was in the Ministry who handled her kind and gotten her thrown in Azkaban. That was why she hadn’t told him. Being reminded of that fact made her lose her apologetic feelings towards him at this moment. He knew nothing and that much was obvious. The moment his hand slammed next to her, her eyes widened. “Are you working for the Dark Lord? Was I just a fucking puppet?” Was he serious? Though she couldn’t blame him for thinking like that, it was tearing at her nerves that he would even think that of her. Had he not learned enough about her in the last few weeks to know that she wasn’t even capable of siding with the Dark Lord? That she wasn’t able to treat him like a puppet? Her eyes narrowed as he continued to scream at her. She literally had nothing to say to him at this point. He didn’t want to know anything, he just wanted to get his anger out and she happened to be the place to put it at the moment.

When he stated that he didn’t want to see her again, she swallowed to avoid showing the upset look that was threatening to come out on her face. That was the last thing she wanted and here he went and said it. Rather than allowing her pain to show on her face, she narrowed her eyes even further and stood up from the wall just as he spat at her feet. It took every inch of her strength to keep from pinning him to the ground and blurting out her whole story just to make him understand where he was coming from, but it was obvious it wasn’t worth it. Maybe one day she would get to explain herself but at this point, he was far too angry and she wasn’t in the best frame of mind herself to rationally explain everything. Instead, he turned from her and she turned from him, making her way away from the howl that sounded through the room. She knew he was walking into the lair of the beast at the moment and she wanted nothing more than to turn around and steal him away, but he had to make his own choice at this point. He wanted nothing to do with her so he would have to survive on his own. She still could not resist turning her head around to look over her shoulder in his direction. His figure was barely visible through the dust, but she did see his wand out. At least he was ready this time.

Turning back to look in front of her, Keara’s eyes landed on the figure of the vampire advancing on the scene where the wolf was. She quickly moved in Centara’s direction and wrapped her slender fingers of her left hand around her upper arm, pulling her quickly in the other direction. She felt the vampire stumble underneath her grip, obviously not expecting to be turned from her intended direction. “We’re leaving. Now. Before this place caves in on us,” Keara said in a stern voice, not even turning to look at Cen. She was sure the look on her face would be that of shock and surprise. Keara was never one to get angry unless the situation really called for it, nor was she one to get bossy either. And to be both at the same time? When she heard a comment come from Centara’s mouth, she stopped in her tracks and turned around to face the woman. “You asked me here to help you, I’ve helped you. Now I’m helping get your ass out of this place before either of us gets any more injured that we already are!” Keara turned to show her the claw mark on her right arm which she could swear was bleeding heavier. Blood had covered the bulk of her arm now, droplets dripping onto the floor where she stood. Gripping her hand tighter around Cen’s arm, she gave her a rough tug before moving another foot, a piece of the ceiling collapsing right where they were just standing. If that wasn’t any indication that they needed to leave, Kea didn’t know what was.

[jmj23435]

Jenelle felt the grund shake and a dragon emerge, headng to the celing. This caused her to stop and stare, barel dodging a hunk of celing s it came close to her, smashing the desks closest. Sh had no where to escape and the Dark Lord was chasing her. Why had she been so stupid. she should've run. For a Ravenclaw she couldn't think very well in situations like this. She had llittle ablity to work under pressure and bumping into the dark lord was a situation that caused her to painc and do something irrational. Send a pathetc jinx at him.

Stupid, stupid girl! She shouted at herself as she saw him raise his wand at her. She had been expecting something worse, so seeing the water caught her off guard. She went to dive out of the way, but was seconds too late. She was knock back, the water making her choke and splutter. It hurt, like needles stinging her face and arms. She felt like she was drowning. She tried to moved, but the water followed her. Her wand slipped from her grip and rolled across the floor and under some chunks of stone. She was defenseless, powerless, tiny, and felt like she was going to die.

She tried to say something, scream for help, but the water was still pelting her she had little oxygen left, no matter how she turned, his powerful water followed her. It felt like shards of ice and she coughed, causing more water to come in her mouth and she coughed again and this cycle repeated. She tried to remember what little she knew about muggle religion, silently praying he would stop her pain. Either make him stop the water, or her die. Either way.

Finally it all stopped . She gasped for breath, trying to fill her lungs again and looked at him her hair dripping as she grabbed for her wand. She panted as she dug it out and stood up trying her best to hide the pain that stung her face and knees. She just wanted to leave. Finally she let her frustration out and glared. She muttered a curse, before collapsing. Her chest went in and out slowly as her eyes flickered closed. "HELP!" Was all she could get out before everything went black for her.

[shawnj]

Shawn was less than pleased when the woman in front of him decided she was not going to turn herself over without a fight. She could have just stayed on the ground and allowed him to take down her friend and then take the two back to the Ministry with him. It would have been a simple task and they would have been well taken care of during the interrogation part of the deal. Granted, their trip to Azkaban wouldn’t be much of a walk in the park, but that was contrary to the point. He was never one to turn down a good fight but Shawn couldn’t help but want to get this battle over with. This fight was getting completely out of hand and too many people were losing their lives. He needed to spend his time helping save all of these people and fighting DeathEaters was not going to help him do that. All he wanted to do was round these two up and move on to the next group. Maybe assist in capturing those who had started this whole mess.

”You and what army?”

Chuckling at her comment, he shifted his weight onto his left leg, his wand still raised in her direction. “My comrades are doing just fine. I see just as many of your kind on the floor,” he commented, obviously lying considering he knew that the dark side was at an advantage at this point. He was not going to demote his co-workers however. He knew that somewhere out there, his team was working on trying to contain the situation. By now they would have called the third and fourth squads which included recent graduates from the training camp. He hadn’t gone through the camp here, but rather in Ireland. He could not vouch for how this camp prepared their auror’s for such battles but he hoped it did a lot better than the course he had gone through. The threat that came from the females mouth only made his grin widen. She was oblivious to the fact that he was not going to turn away from this battle.

When she pointed her wand in his direction, his eyes narrowed as his grip became tighter around the grip of his wand. She wanted to fight and that was fine. He would try his best to keep it short and sweet. A moment later, a spell went right past his face, narrowly missing. She had done it on purpose and she made it known. His spell was a great way to get back at her though. It had sent her straight back into the wall behind her. Shawn had not expected the resulting action, however. A moment later, the wall she hit had collapsed on top of her. He cringed slightly as she let out a scream but didn’t let that break his concentration. He had hurt many a person in the past and he would continue to do so in his line of work. Though he pitied her pain, she had brought it upon herself by choosing her side. His attention was momentarily grabbed as he felt the ground beneath him start shaking. His eyes fell upon the floor beneath him as he saw a small crack form, branching off of a large one that had formed not far from where he was standing. A moment later, the entire floor erupted and pieces of marble went flying in all directions. He narrowly avoided them before looking in the direction of what had made the hole. Damn goblins and using dragons to protect the bank. Did they honestly think that would help? Now all it had done was littered the floor with galleons, sickles, and knuts for everyone to grab. His frustration was obvious on his face because now the Dark Mark was visible in the sky as well. If it hadn’t been for the dragon, the people within the bank wouldn’t have to see that hideous thing moving outside.

Loosening his grip on his wand slightly, Shawn turned his attention back to the battle at hand. He began to advance on the other female, but before he could do so, a spell came from the distance behind the blonde and hit him square in the chest, sending him flying in the other direction. His loose grip had caused his wand to fly from his hand and across the floor. When he hit the ground, he could feel glass shards going into his back. By now he had hoped most of the glass would be embedded in everyone else around him but apparently not. This was the second set of wounds he had sustained in this battle and he had no intentions of getting more. He could feel the wizarding coins under him as well, making small circular indentations in his skin where they connected. He was sure, if he were to take off his shirt, he would have some abstract piece of art on his back.

Sitting up from where he had landed, Shawn felt another spell go by his head, but this time from another direction. A pair of wizards was going at it and each seemed to be missing. Shawn’s eyes widened as he saw his wand right in the path of one of the men’s pacing. “Accio wand!” he shouted. Just before the man’s foot came down on the wand, it came flying into Shawn’s outstretched hand. An auror without a wand was not a terrible thing considering how he had learned wandless magic in Ireland, but it certainly made things easier. Sighing in relief, Shawn rose to his feet, shaking off the excess dirt and glass from his tucked in shirt. Some of the pieces of glass still remained in his back but the good thing was it wasn’t many and at this point, he couldn’t care less. Civilians were his main concern and he had to get rid of these DeathEaters to keep them safe. Advancing on the cluster, he sent a spell spiraling in the blonde’s direction. He had no idea if it hit her or not but he had intentions of finishing off whomever it had been who had knocked him back first. In order to do that, he had to get past the blonde first. He hoped, even if it didn’t hit, it was enough to distract her as he began running in the direction of the woman he had sent into the wall, wand raised as he did so. She had been daring enough to send a spell at him and he wasn’t going to let it go easy.

When he was within the sights of the female, he also noticed a man crouching at his side. “Ashton?” Shawn questioned aloud, coming to a halt only feet from the two, his wand still raised in their direction. Was he a DeathEater too? His exposed forearm did not show the same tattoo as the girl next to him had shown but he knew that did not mean much if anything. The thing that really got to him was that he hadn’t noticed signs of that. They had met only briefly in the pub in Somerset and he had been told that the man was an Auror. There had been nothing done that day that would constitute anything else. So what was he doing standing there helping out a DeathEater?

[Kaydence Morgan]

Water was quickly blurring her vision. Kaydence didn’t want to cry, knowing that her entire night and probably the next day would be completely devoted to it. The longer she could go without submitting to it, the better. Besides, the last thing she would need is allowing the bloody Auror to see her in an even weakened state than what she was in now. Giving him that pleasure wasn’t acceptable. She couldn’t see him through the smoke that surrounded her from the wall that gave in, but she had a feeling he wasn’t too far away. People tended not to deal well with people who meant them harm. Though she doubted the man would believe her if she tried to explain that the tattoo on her arm had a mind of its own that came out whenever she was confronted with danger and was unsure of how to proceed. Like now. Kaydence could feel it weighing her arm down. It wanted revenge for the damage done to her leg. She just wanted to get out of there. The place was in shambles. Gringotts didn’t even look like the respected bank it had once been. With the walls crumbling down and dragons popping up out of the floors and escaping through the ceiling, the place was unrecognizable. It was only a matter of time before the entire building collapsed and trapped everyone inside, including herself if she didn’t find some way to get out of this mess. A loud crack sounded next to her. Turning her head, she gasped as a large piece of the ceiling was only a few inches away from her. She needed to get out. Now.

Kaydence turned her attention back to the rubble on her leg. Placing her hands on the front of the mass, she gritted her teeth and used all the force she could muster to push at the marble. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough. The mass moved just enough to put a little more pressure on her leg. “Damn it,” she said to herself. The pain was unbearable, but she couldn’t give up. There was no one here to help her. She had no idea what happened to Cammie and if Ashton was smart he would have left by now. Then she remembered her wand. How could she have been so stupid? Footsteps coming from the side distracted her. Looking up, her expression turned to that of shock. It was Ashton. He had heard her screaming and he had come for her. Even after she told him not to. Kaydence shouldn’t have been surprised. He didn’t know how to take no for an answer. “Ashton..” He was injured too though she didn’t know the extent of his injuries. It looked like something could have been wrong with his leg as well. They were always so different yet so alike, even when it came to injuries. Her eyes never left him as he struggled to free her leg from its prison. She couldn’t understand why he was doing this. Sure she had saved his life, but was that enough for him to pick her out from amongst all the other wounded to save? Kaydence was filled with a lot of emotions, each more difficult to understand than the next. But the one more dominating than the others was the one that was the most dangerous out of all of them. It wasn’t love, by any means, but it did force her to see what she had been trying to avoid this whole time. She had genuine feelings for him.

Why did he always have to be so stubborn? Why couldn’t he have just left her to fend for herself? So many questions were going through Kaydence’s mind that she started to get angry. At him and at herself. This was the worst thing he could have possibly done. She had been trying for so long to resist his advances, to shoot him down at every possible chance. Granted, she probably had been sending mixed signals when she told him no yet continued to spend time with him, but that was beyond the point. He hadn’t saved her life, just annoyed the hell out of her. What girl could possibly avoid falling for someone who was injured himself and risking his neck just to make sure that she was okay? It didn’t matter that these feelings had been cooped up, waiting to be exposed. They needed to stay that way. For his safety. Why was that so hard to understand? Kaydence cursed herself for not saying anything to him sooner. This could have all been prevented. If she had just been honest with him from the beginning, it would have never have come to this. This whole battle might not have even happened if she would have just spoken up and given him and the Ministry the identity of her brother. He didn’t care about her anymore so what would it have mattered if she sold him out? From what she had seen, Darren didn’t give a shit about keeping his other life secret. He wanted this. He wanted the attention. The only thing he really would have been upset with is that he didn’t get the chance to expose himself first. All of this really was her fault.

The realization hit her hard. Even as Ashton was able to give her leg some relief by removing some of the rubble, it felt the weight had shifted from her leg to her chest. The feel of his fingers grazing her cheek in attempt to comfort her wasn’t enough to push it away. Kaydence stared at him, her face still frozen in shock. ”This isn’t going to feel good.” She didn’t know what he meant by that, but she doubted anything could make her feel worse than she did now. It could have been from the pain in her leg or every single emotion running through her mind, but she was starting to feel light-headed and nauseous. Her head was pounding. It felt like every single injury she had sustained since the beginning of the battle was collaborating to try and make her lose consciousness. It couldn’t happen now. She had already been through so much that if she gave into defeat, Kaydence would never forgive herself. She watched wearily as Ashton lifted and threw another piece of rubble that had been on her leg. Her leg was starting to go numb. Her eyes widened as she looked down and saw that there was no space between the fabric of her jeans and her leg. She placed her hand gingerly on Ashton’s back as he tore at the seam. These jeans had cost a hundred galleons and they were on sale. However, her anger at the rip quickly subsided when she saw just how bad her leg really was. Her leg looked like a log, a dark red log. The hand that was on Ashton’s back moved to her mouth to stifle the gasp. It was disgusting.

Another loud bang off into the distance forced Kaydence to remember what was going on around her. With her leg in this condition, she needed help. Panic was settling in. Frantically, she looked around, just in time to see that bloody Auror slowly stalking towards her and Ashton. Things just had to keep getting more and more difficult with every passing second. Her arm suddenly felt much heavier than her leg did. The mark wanted to take over. She was so frightened that she did the very last thing she should have done. She listened to it. Adrenaline rushed through her veins. Grabbing at Ashton’s arm to prevent him from standing up, Kaydence looked at him apologetically. She needed to use the last remaining bit of humanity she had before completely giving into what the other side of her wanted. She needed to save Ashton one last time. He would never forgive her, but it was a risk she was willing to take. She needed to be reassured of his safety. She tugged harder, grimacing as the look on her face turned from sorrow to pain. This was going to hurt her more than she realized. Capturing her lips with his own, she tenderly kissed him, hoping he’d be able to leave him with one last good memory of her. He’d be confused, but it was better off this way. It was unbearably hard to release his lips from her own but the mark was itching to do her dirty work. She needed to get him away from her before she turned on him. Placing one hand behind his head Kaydence moved her lips to his ear while using the other to free the wand resting to her left. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, using the hand on his head to pull him closer to her for the last time. The Auror was right next to them now. As soon as the wand was free, she swallowed nervously and put it up to his chest. “Levicorpus.”

Ashton’s body lifted into the air, dangling by his ankles as Erin had done earlier. Kaydence avoided the look of hurt that had crossed his features. Glancing off to the side she flicked her wand and sent him sailing Merlin only knew where. It had been just in the nick of time. A scowl quickly found its way onto her face as she slowly turned to face her spectator. His wand was pointed at her, waiting to see what she would do. “Did you enjoy the show?” she asked, her tone deadly. The man lifted his wand and opened his mouth, ready to curse her once more. “Protego!” Whatever spell he was getting ready to cast was useless. “I’m tired of being everyone’s damn puppet.” The feeling of power was quickly coming back. Kaydence could feel the mark shooting up her arm and into her hand, wanting control of her wand. Her arm began shaking. It was going to win. Her whole body was going to numb out of anticipation. The mark begged her to remove the last bit of restraint she had left. It could handle things from here. It wanted her to remember what she was, what she had tried to leave behind. The scowl on her face deepened as her eyes narrowed. Screw it. Her arm was still shaking, but it wasn’t under her control anymore.”I told you to stay away,” the voice coming from her said. Pointing it once more at the man, the corners of her lips turned upward, the last smirk the man would ever see. “AVADA KEDAVRA!”

[Ashton Wentworth]

Her face was saying something he didn't understand. Ashton couldn't be sure if it was the haze surrounding everybody or just the fact that he didn't want to understand whatever was about to come next, he pulled his face away from hers. Confusion was apparent, he knew that their little game was over, that there was no more light hearted banter or midnight phone calls, that was gone now. It still didn't mean that he was willing to leave her to die. “I’m so sorry,” His face contorted, her eyes wouldn't meet his, once glance at her hand was all that he needed to tell him what she was sorry for. Was she going to end him? Was it possible that he had been so wrong about everything that had ever transpired between the two of them? He had assumed that she would feel opposed to taking his life in some way? Whenever the word left her lips, he should have been grateful for the fact that she didn't do what her training probably wanted her to do. They had only a basic knowledge of what sort of things Death Eaters knew, a general overview of the Dark Arts, it wasn't something that he had much interest in, but he assumed Kaydence would know all of it, and far more than he could have even imagined. The wand pressing against his chest might as well of been a dagger, it felt the same to him. It was becoming difficult to breath “Levicorpus.” The floor slipped out from underneath him quickly, he was no longer kneeling next to him, a pained gasp left his lips as his the ankle magically lifted was putting a great strain on his injured knee. He bent in half, attempting to grasp at the joint and ease the pain, the poor tendons weren't going to take much more abuse. She didn't even look to see what would become of him before casting him aside like so much garbage. His body turned on it's side mid-flight, ensuring that he would land directly on his shoulder.

After this, he never wanted his feet to leave ground without his permission again. No more flying, no more jumping too high, and certainly no more of his being blasted backwards. His body was about to give out on him, he could feel it. The deep ache in his bones. His limbs didn't want to lift himself off the ground any longer. He didn't want to be picked back up, and he didn't want to have to stand again for a very long time. He just wanted to lay face down in a soft bed, and sleep it off. He hadn't seen the spell coming. His eyes had still been closed, he had barely started to pull his face away from hers whenever he heard her lips mutter the spell that had sent him backwards for the third time by his count, it felt like more. His ribs had to be cracked by now, they were going to puncture a lung soon enough, his legs were shaky from rocks being dropped on him, landing on them, or having them blasted to bits in his general direction. He was fed up, he wasn't willing to throw in the towel and he certainly was stubborn enough to keep kicking until it killed him. He could only hope that he could take somebody with him. Whenever he connected with something solid once again, a cry left his lips. Once again winding him. He couldn't move, he was stuck in one place, his eyes widened and mouth agape, screaming silently. He wanted to force air back into his lungs, but they didn't want to follow his command. He attempted to wiggle a finger, a toe, anything. For what seemed like an eternity, he was paralyzed. He sounded like a fish out of water, gasping for something he couldn't have. Whenever his elbow regained function, his hand grasped at the spot on his chest where his lungs were, and it seemed to help a little. He heard another groan, but he had no idea if it was from him, or somebody else's mouth. The ground was moving underneath him again, it was pulsing like the rise and fall of a chest, was it really a person? Groaning he rolled to the sides, his arms unwilling to bear his weight even for the moment. He had landed on somebody again, making it the third time he had also been crashed into, or vise versa.

He attempted to put weight on his wrist, to stand, but it wasn't happening. Sliding his arm in a half circle around his body until his wand was at least out in front of him he was able to see what he had landed at the feet of. The heart that was working overtime threatened to give out on him. He could see two very large, very fuzzy feet only a foot away from him. Gasping he turned his head to see if there was even any way that he would be able to help whatever poor soul was unfortunate enough to be in the way of his airborne body. Stavros. Exhaling sharply, his body needed to get into overdrive, and soon, there was no time to be in pain. Rolling to the side as quickly as he could, he would have to hope that Isis would attempt to play with her dinner items just long enough to get what he needed to save their lives. Again. As he could hear was the blood causing a ringing in his ears, like the aftermath of a fallout, he scrambled into a bear crawl position. He could hear glass being rearranged on the floor on his side so he assumed that Tristan was doing the same thing. Whenever he managed to stand on his feet, favoring one leg considerably over the other they stood shoulder to shoulder. He had only been this close to a fully grown, fully-shifted werewolf one other time in his life. His mind transported him back to 2007, the night of the masque ball. He had been standing with the same man, although they were considerably younger then, a lot more inexperienced. They had been quarreling, just like they always did, and this was the same werewolf. Isis had been the one to put the pair of men into the hospital all that time ago. She had sat in his office, knowing what she was and how she had affected him, and done nothing. She was the reason he had taken this job in the first place. She was the whole reason that he had come back to this country in the first place, he had been tracking her for years. He had envisioned this very moment dozens of times before today, perhaps more. Yet, all of the possible versions that he had imagined in his head were nothing compared to what he was feeling now.

His blood was running cold, and it had nothing to do with the fact that his whole body was working overtime just to stay conscious and on his feet. The same dark fur, the same stature, all this time he had assumed it was a man who had been so large, if this was the female version he couldn't even imagine what the male full grown werewolf looked like, and he could only pray that he would never find out. He felt like a teenager again, standing in front of this woman, right before she took a chunk out of his side and almost tore his arm off. One should never have to see or feel their own intestines. His good hand automatically went to that spot on his torso, there were no outward markings to show their fight. The wonderful healers at St.Everdine's had seen to that, not even a faint pink scar showed that he had ever been in a fight of that magnitude. Dropping his hand it quickly balled into a fist, luck was being kind enough to give them both a second chance at this beast, and he would be damned if he was going to turn down such a golden opportunity easily. He imagined the same events were being replayed in Tristan's mind as well, they didn't need to speak, their differences were just going to have to be put on hold long enough to take care of business, they could kill each other tomorrow. Today, he had a list as long as his arm that he needed to take care of. This for one, confronting Kaydence was two, then cleaning up this mess, followed by what was sure to be a mountain of paperwork that was going to be difficult to shove off on somebody else. Incident reports, questioning the dozens of witnesses and getting statements from every single person who had even gotten a splinter from this, and then damage control. No doubt the whole department was going to have to be present at the press conference to attempt to lessen the damage of the rumors no doubt already floating all over Europe. Once they had a body count, and they had to face the reporters, the whole wizarding community was going to be in chaos. All of the Ministry was in for a few sleepless weeks, if not months or longer until they had something to tell everybody. He was getting ahead of himself again, he needed to think. He needed to focus on the task at hand, not what tomorrow was going to bring. His hands went to his pockets, feeling around for the little black case, where was it? Where had he put it this morning? He was starting to get jittery, his jacket! Where was his jacket?

He needed Tristan to stall for him, he had to find his jacket he needed the tonic. His hands were running over his body just to double check, and yes, he could remember leaving it in his jacket pocket earlier this morning. What a foolish mistake to make on a day like this, of course there was no possible way to know that a war would have broken out over the course of the day. He turned his head to look at Tristan, hoping against hope that he would understand what was at stake, he hoped that Stavros was going to let him do his job for once, just trust in his abilities. He had to want Isis taken down and behind bars just as much as he did. “Let's get this bitch” He had never been so happy to harm a woman, nor to do as Tristan asked before and he doubted that he ever would again. Nodding in agreement an unbridled excitement washed over every pore in his body. He saw Tristan lunge at her, wand extended, whatever else he had been dealing with seemed to be disappearing for him, just like the world was fading out of focus around Ashton “ACCIO JACKET!” There was no time to look around for where it fell, he could only hope that nobody had stepped on it, and nothing had fallen on it. The leather jacket he had dropped on his way into the building floated up out of the rubble, soaring toward him with a fair amount of speed. His fist clamped around the fabric with vigor and fumbled for the pocket. Extracting a small black box he lifted the handle and unclasped the lock and flipped open the box. The tiny syringe and even smaller vial were in tact, even though there were boot prints all over the leather and who knew what assortment of bodily fluids. It looked like the box had saved it. Hoping that Tristan was holding his own just long enough to get the tube loaded with the thick purple liquid.

His hands were shaking he was only going to have one chance at this, he needed to get this right. Poking the needle through the top of the wax seal keeping the potion in the vial he loaded the tonic into the syringe and stuck his fingers through the loopholes. Dropping his wand since it wouldn't help in this task at all he took a running step toward Isis. If he didn't take her down now, the chances were that he was a dead man anyway. If he missed, dropped the needle, it didn't work, or he tripped, they were both dead. Their lives, and the lives of all the rest of the people in this building and outside depended on this right now. He had never had a chance to test this potion before, there weren't exactly an abundance of werewolf test subjects willing to be guinea pig to the ministry. He didn't even know what was in it exactly, he just knew that he had been issued two vials, this sticky purple one, and a yellow one. The other was for Vampires, this one was for Isis. They were supposed to be toxic to both species, but harmless to humans. Originally the idea had been to be able to swallow the appropriate tonic whenever he went out on missions, and if something were to happen to him and he were bitten by either, not only would it prevent him from turning into anything else, but it was going to do something to them as well. They had been fuzzy on the exact details, and he assumed that was for a reason. Since then, he hadn't left his house without them. There had been multiple times whenever he wondered what Kaydence would have done if she had gone about snooping in his clothing and come across his little box, no doubt it would have made quiet the interesting argument. Pushing all thoughts of her from his mind, he pushed off the ground with his good leg, and became airborne for what he hoped would be the last time in a long time.

[Adonis Maddock]

”Hold it” Adonis had focused his attention on a little brunette witch across the way, she had a burning need to have some boils on her face. He could just feel it. Whenever the raspy voice came from behind him, it was intoxicating. It was only the third time he had yet to hear her speak and already he could tell that it wasn't something that he was ever going to get properly used to. He stopped in his tracks, waiting for her to come to him. They both had business to attend to, he had ensured that she would be able to get up and going, yet she was lingering with him. A twinge of disappointment mixed with interest flowed through him. He was flattered that he had captured her attention long enough to warrant prolonged conversation, but now was not the time or the place. Words would not be able to convey enough information in this setting. He wanted to see her in action, to see those wonderful muscles at work, once again he wanted to see the fury in her eyes that had drawn his attention in the first place. “Who the hell are you and what was that about?” Irritation was starting to show it's ugly head. As much as he would love to have an actual conversation with her, he didn't have the time. He was here originally to make an impression, and he was running out of time to do so, and any more time spent here talking to this creature was not going to help him accomplish his goal. “All in due time love” His attention was focused over her shoulder, attempting to keep tabs on the brunette, and attempting to get a feel for where Mr. Morgan was perched so that he would be sure to see the death of the little woman.

“I’m not done with you,” At this, he smiled and nodded once, placing a hand on her bicep to test her personal boundaries, and to push her away gently if he needed to. There was no way that he could take his eye off of his work, not whenever he was this close. While she was the most tempting thing that he could even imagine, he had worked too hard for this. “No love” he started as she turned to walk away “You certainly are not” it was muted, softer than his normal voice was. He knew that she was still close enough to hear him if she was listening properly. He assumed that she was, unless she was too consumed with whatever had distracted her. Whatever it was he was grateful to it. He needed to get away from her, or else he would be too distracted. He hadn't meant to go over and help her in the first place, he had been drawn to her. Of course, it was a good thing now since she would have to opportunity to get back into the game if she wanted. Glancing over his shoulder as he retreated to his target and saw she was heading toward a rather large wolf. Making a mental note to avoid her at all costs. He didn't know whose side she was on, he could make an educated guess but wouldn't know for sure as long as she was in form. Advancing toward the woman, he was beat to the punch as a spell whizzed past, fell out of the air, and then the woman was whisked away. No matter, there were a few other Ministry officials that had the same need for boils of the face and torture. Casting one more look at the vampire, he was saddened slightly to see that both she and her companion were no longer within the building. Shrugging he stopped a stray spell, reflecting it back unto the caster, who collapsed into a fit of his own screams.

He managed to stop a few other men, and he dropped one more official who appeared to be too stupid to continue breathing anyhow. That was about the time that the Dragon made it's presence known. Whenever the Monster burst forth from under his feet he couldn't stop laughing, it was a horrible, maniacal sound. He had been thrown backwards with a great force, coins coming up from under where his feet had just been a moment ago and thrown into the air. He held out his hands as if it were snowing to him, this was his idea of a grand time. Pretty women, violence, and he had a free pass for all the murder he could evoke. If the Dark lord could promise events like this in the future, he would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he will have aligned himself with the right side. Pushing himself to his feet, he didn't take note that he was more than a little bruised, and now his pants were going to have to be replaced. They were riddled with tiny snags of fabric and the like, he didn't have the patience to fix them, he would much rather just purchase new clothing. As for the bruises, he could still have the option of walking into the hospital and being treated as he didn't yet have the Dark mark to identify him. He was very skilled into making up stories whenever the situation called for them, and he could easily fib and make himself out to be a different person, and innocent bystander. Impulsively, he dusted off his hind end, and thighs before turning to see if any more damage could even be done by his hand. By the state of the room, the building was about to go, and he had no intentions of going down with it. He was far more effective alive. There weren't too many people left inside, the Dark Lord had made his point. Glancing upward to the hole in the ceiling, he stared in admiration of the mark illuminated against the otherwise bright sky. With that, he decided it was time to go, feeling that his point had been effectively made.

Slowly, he walked toward the man whom he had been working so hard to earn favor from. He hoped that with this final act he would be able to secure that favor, and use it to his eternal advantage. Smirking he moved up beside the man, hands placed within his pockets, wand tucked away. It was apparent that the work here was done, now the question was where to go. Obviously he couldn't return home, he had just made a rather public spectacle of himself. Adonis was certain that he must have some sort of lair or safe house that he could retreat to, but it would be safe not to make the jump from here to there just in case somebody or something grabbed them at the last possible second. Craning his neck to look up at the slightly taller man he hoped that he wasn't going to be cast aside once more. “May I offer my house Sir?” he wouldn't address the man as Lord or master until he had that glorious mark permanently on his arm, where he would wear it with pride just as his father had done before him. He might not be the family favorite but this was certainly going to earn him some points back home. The eldest Maddock son getting in ties with the new Dark Lord. This time, he knew better than to extend his hand to the man, yet, there was no other option since the man had no idea what his house looked like or where it was even located. It was a small victory for Adonis. Holding out his upturned palm he waited to see if his offer would be accepted before apparating out of this mess.