#amimity

Amity: In the shadows of the Lyons Cave crouched Amity Blight, holding a glimmer of magic.

She had the Rings of Carmarthen.

Well, nine of them. On her way out of the Ambrosius house she had rushed and dropped one of them. It could be on the stairs, or under a table, or in the hellish forest for all she knew– it didn’t matter now. She trembled as she slid one on each finger, praying to the Titan that they would give her some of that kind of strength: demonic, enormous, unbeatable.

Amity had one more chance to get this right.

“It’s okay,” she muttered to herself. “After this is over, prom. Just one more fight,  and  then you and Riley–”

Amity’s tongue caught, because she didn’t know what the rest of that sentence looked like.

It had always been…get the seal, go home. But now…  but if she had the Seal, at least she’d have a bargaining chip on her side. Odalia and Alador would be too happy to care about Amity and Riley after all that.

Do it for Riley.

Amity took a deep breath and then opened her eyes. Fucking show time.

This time she knew what to expect. Amity grabbed the potion she’d made with Edric and lobbed it with all her might into the cave. Glass shattered, a searing light filling the cavern. Ashmedai screamed. The entire cave shook with the force of his pain. But as dirt and pebble rained down around her, Amity ran toward it, thrusting both of her ring-clad hands ahead of her as she forced magic into every single breath she took.

“Abomination!” she shouted. “Rise!”

Her freshly minted and mixed golem poured from the pot on her belt and spilled ahead in front of her. Amity jumped onto it. She imagined she was on the ice again– gliding on skates, gaining speed, chasing after Riley. She slid forward and the golem raised in the air, impossibly strong and sturdy and full of the magic that was pulsing from the rings. Amity could do anything! She could make as much golem as she wanted! And so the golem continued to stretch and wind, rising above Ashmedai’s head, Amity pushing forward, forward, forward, while Ashmedai writhed and moaned from the effect of the light potion.

“Where are you?!” he veered to the left and to the right. He smashed into the sides of the caves. “WHERE ARE YOU!”

There it was again! The seal!

Amity’s abomination once again twisted in the air and sharpened at the end into a fine point. She’d spear Ashmedai through. She’d get the seal when she had pinned that asshole to the wall! She surged forward right as Ashmedai’s eyes rolled back and blinked open, red and bloody.

He smashed into the top of the cave. Stalactites plummeted like knives from the top and sliced Amity’s abomination into pieces in several places.

She fell to the ground, yelping, and gathered just enough of her abomination to cushion her fall.

“Nice try little witch. Now. Time to die,” chuckled Ashmedai. And he opened his mouth.

Mim: It started for Mim when she came down the stairs and kicked against an object that wasn’t supposed to be there. Of course, living in a house with two cats and an extremely sentient fox, things ended up all over the floor. But it was the slight flash as it spun away from her toe that had her stopping to take a closer look.

As soon as she did, she went cold. There was no reason for the Black Obsidian Ring of Carmarthen to be on the floor. It was supposed to be safely locked away with the others.

Head whipping around, Mim bolted for the magic study and yanked the door open, making a beeline straight for the box that contained the rings. Inside, she could see what looked like the 10 rings glittering gently in the light from the hallway. Something that was impossible with the ring in her hand. Without questioning it, Mim slid the black obsidian ring onto her finger and reached forward to lay the ring gently against its double.

Instantly, the illusions on the rings shattered and all of them dulled.

Someone had taken the other nine rings. Someone had stolen from them. As if they thought the Ambrosius siblings would be too stupid to notice what had happened or too nice not to retaliate.

They had another thing coming. No one was taking anything else from them.

Mim could feel temper beginning to rise, but she forced herself to take a deep breath. Remember Archimedes’ lessons. The ring she had exposed weaknesses, shielded from negative attacks, increased self control, and tapped into the true self. She had a feeling she was going to need all of that in the upcoming confrontation. But she had to find them first.

Not a lot of people were aware the rings were connected. But she had spent months working with them now. Closing her eyes, she lowered her shields and opened her perception wide. “Invenire.”

Instantly, she saw a dark thread ripple across the horizon and into Enchantra. She didn’t hesitate, shoving her feet into shoes and racing out the door to track down this thief and do whatever it took to take back what belonged to her.

Mim hardly paid attention to where she was going, ignoring the paths in favor of the direct route she was being shown. She could feel the way the forest shifted around her, as if it was trying to guide her away from her destination, but she didn’t care. She followed along at a steady run, making the minute adjustments so she could expand her lungs and drain the lactic acid from her muscles. She could have run forever. Instead, she found herself outside of a cave. And a lot of pieces abruptly clicked into place.

Before she could go inside, the cave seemed to shake and there was a loud crash, one after the other.

Time to die.

The words echoed out of the cave. So naturally, Mim ran straight towards it.

“Hey you bastard! Pick on someone your own size!”

Scooping up a handful of the shattered stalactites with the hand wearing the ring, Mim slammed them back into the ground and pulsed her magic. Immediately the ground of the cave rippled before a spike of pure rock when shooting up towards the shadowy figure in the center of the room.

Amity: Amity gasped on the ground, her golem a messy puddle around her, even as the magic vibrated in her blood from the extra boost of the rings. It was like she’d been on rocket fuel, but had crashed to earth, and the momentum from that crash was still spilling out. She needed to get up, but she couldn’t get up. She needed to move, to defend, anything–

Time to die!

“No,” gasped Amity as she struggled to her hands and knees–

The cave ground erupted like a volcano.

Amity yelped as Ashmedai’s massive hand crushed the rock. Debris exploded in all directions. But it was the second she needed to get a hold of her magic again. The golem around her moved up like a massive wave, shielded Amity and her rescuer–

Titan’s horns– Mim!

“Mim!” She shouted. She didn’t get much time to say anything else as Ashmedai headbutted the solid golem wall, sending a massive crack through the middle. Amity raised her hands up and the wall turned into liquid so Ashmedai’s second attempt used his own force against him. He crashed into the opposite side of the cave, covered in sticky golem, temporarily blind.

Amity grabbed Mim by the hand and dove behind a massive chunk of rock. “What are you doing?!” she shouted at her. “You can’t be here! Get out!”

Mim: Mim dodged away from the shattering rocks, pulling the enchanted pencil out of where she had left it tucked into her hair. Distantly, she could feel a part of her mind screaming at the image in front of her eyes. She had read about creatures like this, but seeing it in reality was unlike anything she could have expected.

But rage, determination, and a finely honed survival instinct kept the fear back so she could fall apart later.

She saw the golem rise up in the background and used that to dart to the edge of the cave, collecting bits of leaves, seeds, anything and everything she could use. Yanking out a strand of her own hair, she quickly tied a knot in it, tying up all the materials in the bag that grew so she could attach it to her waist, scratching a rune into it with the pencil to stabilize it.

Just as she was finishing, Amity barreled into her and shoved them both behind a rock.

“Not without you!” she shouted back, gripping Amity’s hand tightly.

Right now, she couldn’t figure out if they were friends or if Amity had only ever used her. She couldn’t figure out if she should scream and duel her or if she should be bullying Martin into giving Amity a permanent room in their house away from everything. She couldn’t figure out how she felt, and none of that mattered because she did know one thing for sure.

She wasn’t going to leave Amity to die.

“So are you leaving with me or are  you going to tell me what the fucking plan is?”

Amity: The fucking plan.

Amity had come in here with a plan. It had been a good one. For a minute– and some fights, a minute was all you needed – it had even worked. She’d caught Ashmedai off guard, weakened his eyesight, and could have impaled him through with her abomination, and the extra boost from the rings. But this was the problem with plans: if they fell apart, what happened next?

Amity hadn’t had a Plan B. This was Plan B. Now with Mim in the mix?!

She panted, looked over her shoulder at the massive moving shape of Ashmedai as he groaned and swiped at his own eyes. Then, back at Mim.

A plan.

Maybe Mim was her new plan. She’d never had a partner before.

“I– get the seal from Ashmedai’s tongue,” she blurted the goal, which wasn’t the plan, but she was taking ideas. “Once we get it, we can banish him back to the Underworld. Problem is, he opens his mouth and it’s basically a freaking black hole in here. But his eyes are the weak point.”

She scrambled for her wand and drew a light rune to help her make out Mim and their surroundings. “And light hurts.”

Mim: If Mim had known this was how the year was going to end, maybe she would have done a little more studying. But Archimedes had no interest in demons, and she’d had no interest in the Seal, so she was relying entirely on Amity’s knowledge of the situation.

So she absorbed what she could, noting weaknesses as they were listed and glancing around. She wished she had more components with her, but she’d have to make do with what she could find.

Good thing she’d always been a bit more of an impulsive scrounger when it came to magic anyway.

“Ok, got it. I’ll stab, you light the place up like it’s fucking Christmas, and I can anchor you while you grab it. If anything goes wrong, we improvise and if you die I will get a medium to bring your ass back so I can kick it myself.”

Maybe not the most encouraging final note to end on. But this was Mim after all.

Catching sight of some small bones on the ground, she grinned and scooped those up as well, shoving those in her makeshift pouch as she reached for another couple stones. Glancing around the corner, she saw the demon waiting for them, blinking and searching around as if its eyes were watering.

“See you on the flip side,” she said, right as she was about to step out from their shelter.

Amity: If Mim had questions, she saved them. Which was helpful– there was no time to explain and Amity wouldn’t know where to start. Would she go all the way back to her embarrassment at Grom? Would she tell Mim about how her parents, their standing in the Emperor’s Coven, was jeopardized? That without that seal, her own future shattered before her very eyes? She’d probably have to go into all that later, if they both survived this–

No, when they both survived this. Amity couldn’t die here. She had a freaking prom date later, with an elf hottie, who was also the coolest person that Amity had ever met!

And that prom wouldn’t be complete without Mim either.

So Amity’s hand shot out and she grabbed Mim’s arm, yanking her back. “Wait!” she hissed, heart hammering in her skull. She let go so she could slide some of the rings off her right hand. Mim’s plan didn’t suck, but to give it the best chance, they both needed to be strong.

“Sorry about stealing these but– here, I’ll give you the second half after we pulverize Hellbreath over there!” Amity said. She pressed the rings into Mim’s hand, then locked eyes with her.

“We’re not going to die,” she told Mim like she was giving an order. “Don’t. Die. Ambrosius.”

Now it was time to fight.

Amity reached out a hand, and the golem splattered around the cave started to tremble, turning into squelching worm-like masses that slithered toward her. “Now let’s go!”

They both ran out at the same time. Amity’s golem gathered around her, twisting into a funnel that lifted her up in the air so she could draw a massive light rune in the middle of the cave. It lit up, pulsing golden, not as blinding as the potion she released earlier, but–

It pissed Ashmedai off. He screeched again and flailed out an arm to dash the rune.

Mim: Mim had just taken a deep breath, ready to run out and do something that Martin was definitely going to yell at her for later (because there would be a later) when she was instead pulled back. “Damn it Am - oh. Hell yeah, ok.”

She slipped on the four rings that Amity gave her, not paying too much attention to which they were as she spread them out across both her hands. Almost immediately she felt the tingle of something powerful and energizing racing through her veins, even as clarity and focus descended.

This was Mim Ambrosius and Amity Blight, two of the best sorcerers this town had ever seen. This demon wouldn’t know what hit it.

“I won’t.”

Together they ran out and Amity launched herself into the air. Mim instead pulled out one of the bones and the rocks, slamming them together before she slammed them into the ground. It only took a pulse of energy before a sharp spike of intertwined rock and bone went shooting straight towards the demon’s center.

Just behind it, she threw a handful of seeds and fluff and they stretched into long thorny vines that attempted to grab hold of the demon’s arm and protect the rune as it was being created.

Amity:

Ashmedai was massive. Ashmedai was strong. Ashmedai was ancient– and ancient beings had magic that aged with them, like freaking wine or cheese or something. Even with the ten rings she’d felt Ashmedai’s power as it engulfed her own. She would have died, plain and simple, if Mim had not come along.

Maybe that was the difference. Not better golem, not a juiced-up potion, and not ten ancient rings nearly as old as the demon himself.

They just needed two of them, to split the fucker’s attention. What was more powerful than two teenage girls anyway?

Ashmedai broke through Mim’s vines, but they’d worked long enough for Amity to dodge his blow. Her golem swam up her frame like a coat of armor until she was covered head to toe. She jumped onto Ashmedai’s swinging arm and raced upwards.

“You girls want to be eaten!” Ashmedai roared again but this time, he didn’t close his mouth.

Amity clutched onto the dark, moss-covered demon. Her legs were lifted, but she clung tight. Rocks and dirt were vacuumed up into the monster’s black hole of a mouth again. But Amity was ready this time. She peered through her sticky armor of golem at the flapping, waving seal.

“MIM!” she screamed. She had no idea where the girl was. “THROW ME A VINE!”

Mim: Vaguely, Mim kept an eye on where Amity was at, watching the golem engulf her before she started to run up closer to the dark figure. Furiously, she sent pebbles flying Ashmedai’s way, each one lengthening into a blade as they flew that pierced its sides and arms, a dozen irritants to keep its focus on her even as it tried to bash away Amity.

“Eaten out maybe but I’m pretty sure I’m not a fan of your technique!” she shouted before leaping to dive behind one of the rocks again for a moment to catch her breath.

But the call pulled her back out into the front. A moment later, she transformed her feet into stones itself, sending a rooted stalagmite shooting through the ground from each sole to lock her into position. She could feel the pull of the wind beginning to reach her as she laced more power up through her legs and around to her waist. If he wanted to move her, he’d have to rip up the whole damn cave floor.

At the same time, she pulled out the last of the materials she’d collected from her makeshift pouch and threw it out towards Amity, the fine wrapping around her wrist even as it grew and and grew and grew. The force of the sucking motion itself was pulling it closer, but she tightened her grip.

“IT’S COMING YOUR WAY! I GOT YOU!”

Amity: She had been here before.

Before, she had been on the other end of the rope. She’d held it tightly but it hadn’t mattered. Sugar had slipped from her grasp. The seal had slipped from her grasp. In the moment, she’d screamed like she lost someone, but months later, she knew the truth.

There had been no one else on the other end of the rope. It had only been Amity. Amity’s magic, Amity’s determination, Amity all alone. When Ashmedai ate Sugar, it had been Amity who he swallowed whole. She’d left this cave with a piece of her, gone.

But now there was another person on the other end of the rope.

Amity jumped in the air and caught the vine as Ashmedai’s breath pulled her back. The suction was intense, but this was what had to happen. She held tightly as the vine unspooled and then she was in Ashmedai’s mouth, as hot as the inside of a volcano. She planted her feet on the sicko’s rough, slimy tongue. She slid back, down– almost to the tunnel of the demon’s throat.

But the vine jerked her forward again, the length of it having run out.

Amity pulled herself up, climbing up against the force of the sucking wind. “Don’t– let– go!” Amity shouted, but through her golem armor, through the roaring wind, through the dark, she couldn’t be sure of Mim heard her. She just had to trust that Mim was still there, on the other end of the line.

She had to trust that Mim trusted Amity too.

Her muscles strained. She used every bit of strength that she had, along with the strength of the rings, to fight against the storm. And then the flapping little piece of seal was there, so fucking close!

With a gutteral shout, Amity lunged. The golem peeled back from her hand so she had the dexterity to grab the seal. And then she yanked.

It didn’t budge. It slipped from her fingers. Amity grabbed it a second time and pulled again, and this time it came off into her hand.

Instantly, everything changed.

The wind stopped. Ashmedai, a solid, black mass with multiple arms and more mouth than face, literally freaking dissolved around her, into black smoke. One moment she was standing on the monster’s tongue and the next she was falling through the air. She let out a surprised scream, and had just enough thought in her to command her golem to balloon around her, like an inflatable suit.

She hit the ground once, bounced, and then hit it again. This time, her golem went splat.

And that was it.

Amity rolled over, panting. She could barely make out the wrecked, cracked ceiling of the cave in the dim wandlight. In one hand, she still clutched the stupid seal. It was not much bigger than a post it note, made out of some kind of old leather, with a golden rune stitched into it. She held it tightly and just breathed.