THE BATTLE OF REDFERN

Marisol was sleeping peacefully when all of the sudden a noise in her dorm room roused her awake. She slowly blinked open her eyes...

...to see the shadowed figure of a man standing over her bed, reaching his arm out towards her. She immediately screamed and lashed out with her eilemaiden, sending the intruder flying across her room and into the opposite wall with a crash! Marisol lept up, her heart pounding faster than it had ever pounded before.

It was then that she heard the chaos going on outside her room. Her intruder wasn't alone. There were pounding footsteps, screams and shouts, crashes and bangs. What the hell was going on!?

The intruder on her floor began to stir. Thinking fast, Marisol ran to her window and wrenched it open. She flew out into the open air. It was still dark out, but if she squinted she thought she could see clio down below, running through the school grounds.

I have to find Skye and Carter, she thought frantically. They couldn't fly out their windows like she could. They were in danger! Without hesitation, Marisol flew around the building to where she knew her sister and best friends' room was. She went to open the window, but it was locked. No no no no no..!

"SKYE! CARTER!" she shouted, banging on the window. She could hear more screams coming from inside the building. Through the window, she saw Skye and Carter's door fly open. "SKYE! CARTER!"

Skye was also sleeping peacefully, Pen at her side in the shape of an ermine, when her dreams twisted from pleasant over into nightmare territory.

The prince she'd been dancing with had gone to get her punch, and suddenly was screaming her name from across the ballroom. SKYE! CARTER! Why was he calling for Carter, too? Was Carter here? She blinked and suddenly he was behind a glass door, pounding furiously against it as he continued to call for her and her best friend. She looked wildly around, noticing that all over the other dancers had deserted the floor. She was alone. And why did the prince suddenly sound like Marisol?

She was risen out of her dreams by a hand on her wrist. Her eyes shot open and suddenly she was looking a man in the face. She screamed, kicking out as hard as she could. Her legs were weighed down a bit by the blanket, but she made contact with the side of his body.

"Fucking bitch," the man growled, squeezing her wrist tighter. He nabbed the other one as well and wrenched Skylar out of bed.

Panicking, Skylar looked over at Carter's bed. Carter was also being dragged out of bed, a woman with bright red hair had her around the stomach, a shadowy figure holding her legs. "CAR--!" Skylar screamed, before a second shadowy figure covered her own mouth.

Pensive, still on the bed, changed shape immediately into a wolf, charging at the two unfamiliar daemons in the room: some sort of snake, and a dog.

"Bingo," the man holding Skylar's wrists said, a wicked grin on his face.

Just like her two best friends, Carter had also been asleep. She wasn't dreaming, but her deep slumber was interrupted by the strange woman yanking her out of bed. Carter yelped and started kicking immediately, and the woman cursed under her breath and suddenly a shadow monster grabbed Carter's legs. She glanced over at Skye to see that somebody was attacking her too.

Thankfully, Skye's daemon attacked the strangers daemons long enough to distract the two of them and Carter was able to squirm out of the woman's arms. Acting fast, Carter rushed to the desk that was next to her bed, ripped open the top drawer and grabbed a small pack of matches. She shakily tried to light one, failed, but finally lit the second one. She quickly made the flame larger until it was big enough to split in half. Two hot flames blazed in each hand and her hair flailed wildly.

"Leave us alone," she threatened. "Or I will burn you alive!"

Marisol mustered up all the strength she had and kicked at the window with both her feet. It took three tries, but on the third the glass shattered. Some of the shards cut Marisol's legs, but she had so much adrenaline coursing through her body that she didn't even feel it.

She quickly surveyed the scene. Carter was temporarily holding the two attackers at bay with her fire, but the attackers looked about ready to send their shadows forward. "Quick! Guys, over here!" Marisol called. It would be tough, but she knew she could fly all three of them out of there and to safety.

Skylar had never been more frightened in her life. When Carter pulled out balls of fire, Skylar cursed the Amelian gods that had decided she was still unsettled. She felt helpless against these strangers, and hated herself for running behind Carter, as though Carter was her protector, but had no choice.

Suddenly the window behind her shattered, and Skye whipped around to see her twin sister, Marisol, flying in. She called for them, and Skylar ran over to her. "How did you know this was happening?" she asked, frantically, looking back and forth from her sister to Carter, who was still facing the strangers. "Can you get us out of here??"

Carter was standing her ground against the attackers, when she heard the window behind her crash in and for a moment she let the commotion distract her. That was when they decided to attack, and the woman sent her shadow monster out first.

CARTER LOOK OUT! She heard Warren screech.

She whipped her head back around just in time to be face to face with a black creature with razor sharp teeth grin at her. Thankfully she reacted quick enough to punch the monster in the face with a fire ball.

"Get Skylar out first!" Carter shouted at Mar, without turning her head. "I think I can handle these two for a few minutes!"

"I can get you both out!" Marisol yelled as Skye ran over, and Carter continued to fend off the attackers. It wasn't that she didn't trust Carter to hold her ground. Carter could be tough, she knew that. It was that coming back for Carter would mean leaving Skye alone on the ground, which Marisol didn't think was any safer than this dorm. Unlike the two of them, Skye had no eilemaiden to defend herself with.

Marisol put one arm around Skye, and made a sweeping motion with her arm. A gust of wind sent one of the attackers flying, as Carter took down the other one's shadow. "Come on Carter!"

Carter hesitated at first. She knew Mar was strong, but she worried she wouldn't be strong enough for the both of them. She thought for a moment that maybe she should stay behind, but Warren thought otherwise.

Don't be a hero, Carter! he said urgently. Go now!

Carter sent out her flames for good measure and quickly turned to wrap her arms around her best friends waist. Soon the three girls lifted up and into the air then out the window. Carter held on tight, with her eyes shut even tighter.

Once outside it became quickly apparent to Skylar that they were not the only ones in trouble. As Marisol flew them shakily toward the ground the three friends saw several other students racing from the dorms. Screams filled the night air as adults and their daemons overtook the students.

"What's happening?" Skylar asked as they touched down on the ground. She didn't feel any safer out here than she had in her room. They needed to find a way to escape. "Where are all these clio coming from?"

"Grab her!" one of their attackers shouted from the window the girls had just flown from. Skylar looked up and saw the man pointing down at herself, Mar, and Carter. "The one with the ermine!"

Pensive jumped from Skylar's neck where he had ridden on the way down and transformed into a wolf again.

Two women appeared from the darkness, their shadow selves coming up as well. A jackal snarled behind Skye and she whipped to see that their new assailants daemons were behind them. They were surrounded.

Even some of the best Eilemaiden users couldn't fly very far with two extra clio, and Mar was no exception. It took everything she had to keep the three of them from plummeting to the ground, let alone try to fly further away from danger. She had no choice but to land in the middle of what had once been their school courtyard, but was now a battleground.

It was an uneven battle though, as settled and trained adults attacked and made off with unsettled schoolchildren. What in the hell was even happening? Why was this happening?

Mar spun around when she heard voices calling for Skye's capture. Everywhere she looked, there was either an attacker or their shadows. "Stay away!" she yelled at them, whipping up as much wind as she could still muster.

As soon as Carter figure out what was happening she felt her body go rigid. Her brothers and sisters! If these clio really were attacking and kidnapping unsettled minors then her siblings were in danger.

With a new sense of urgency, Carter whipped up more flames from her source of fire and whipped them around her and her friends to ward off the attackers coming upon them. Suddenly a man grabbed her from behind, but luckily with her sporty background she quickly wriggled her way out from his grip, turned and smacked her flaming palm directly onto his face. The man yelped in either anger or pain, or both and he backed away.

"Wendy, Mason, and Vinny!" She cried. "I have to protect them!"

Her youngest siblings, the twins, were thankfully home with her parents, safe from all of this.

Skylar still had no idea what was going on. Shouting and blasts of different eilemaiden were happening all around them in the dark. Nothing made any sense. They were capturing the unsettled kids?

Just as Carter started screaming about her little sister and brothers a shadow man, unaffected by the fire blasting from Carter's hands, pushed Carter aside and grabbed at Skylar.

"Get off me!" she shrieked, pulling away. The shadow man, void of any expression, held tightly to Skye's body as he pinned her arms to her sides. The shadow daemon focused on Barbaro, turning into a polar bear and slapping the small grison to try to incapacitate his clio.

"HEY!" Mar yelled as a shadow man grabbed her sister. She moved to help when all of the sudden she felt like she was hit by an invisible sledgehammer, sending her to the ground reeling. Dazed, she looked up. A few feet away Bar was on the ground, pinned beneath a shadow bear's gigantic paw.

"Better calm down, or your sister's daemon might get hurt," she heard the owner of the shadow say to Skye.

Don't listen to them, Mar wanted to say, but she could feel the pressure of the shadow bear pressing down on her daemon, making it impossible to speak.

Carter felt the wind knocked out of her as she hit the ground. She immediately tasted the coppery taste of blood in her mouth as she bit her tongue and tears sprung to her eyes.

"Skylar!" She squeaked, as she watched her friend get overtaken by a shadow monster. She tried to stand but felt a weight in the middle of her back. Somebody was stepping down on her, hard. Once again she felt all of the wind leave her body, and she struggled to get out from underneath the clio who had a hold on her.

"Marisol!" She wheezed. "Wendy, Vinny!" She tried to say Mason's name, but all she could muster was a quiet whimper.

Pen immediately tried to get the shadow bear off of Barbaro, jumping on its back but was forced off as a second and third shadow daemon came and forced Pen to the ground.

"Please! Why are you doing this?" Skye pleaded as her sister and best friend were both knocked to the ground. All three girls had been completely overpowered. "Please!"

"This is the unsettled one, right?" a man asked as he walked up to the Skye and the shadow man. The shadow's owner nodded. "Her daemon's been switching since we found her."

Pen still lay on the ground struggling underneath the two larger shadow daemons.

"Stop struggling and we'll make this easier on all of you," the man said. He held his hand up to Skylar's temple. "Say night night."

A jolt of electricity shot out of his hand and then everything went black.

Mar could only watch helplessly as the Solas clio knocked her sister unconscious. It was like watching Jeanine slip beneath the waves all over again. "Sk-Skye...!" she choked out, the shadow bear still pressing down on Bar. "Sk..."

The Solas clio moved to Carter next, rendering her unconscious as well. Then he turned towards Mar, and the Solas clio's face was the last thing she saw before it all went dark.