His voice cracked in excitement as he exclaimed victoriously "Hell yeah!" As he stared however he realized he had no idea how to use it. His excitement dissipated quickly and he simply made his way back to the concert hall quietly, not bothering to cloak himself. He was visibly nervous but upon re-entering the concert hall, he masked it with confidence. He quickly waved the kettle in the air with a forced smile at Lloyd.

"I'm... A sage?" Daniel asked the two before taking the knife and peering at his reflection. "What does that mean, exactly?" These two seemed to have big plans for him. When would they clue him in? These thoughts held his attention for quite some time as he stared into the knife. Slowly, he grabbed the knife by the handle and stuck out one of his fingers. He carefully pricked himself on the finger and watched the blood drip into the cauldron. Afterwards he looked to the priest, then to Ms. Ignianus, and finally to Miss Rachel. He gazed at her for a moment then spoke. "So what's a sage? How do you know that I'm a sage?"

Logan immediately dispelled his armor again and dropped to the ground, covering his head.

This was definitely not the best idea! He concluded as he pressed himself to the earth.

"Yes, meeeeeeeeeeee!" Against his better judgement, the junior taunted the spirit once again. Whatever Johnathan was planning, Logan hoped he did it quickly.

Johnathan completely blanked out for a second. What was he supposed to do with this again? He grabbed the ofuda and turned towards the ghost, who was strangely attracted to Logan. He had no backup plan, so this was his shot at finally taking down this thing. Fortunately, his mind unfroze and remembered there was a chant to this. Making his way back to the ghost as quickly as he could he screamed at the top of his lungs and attempted to attach the ofuda to the ghost, desperately hoping it would work. "Oni tachisare!"

---

Lloyd smiled and gave an airless laugh at the rant Lotus was making. She was something special alright. At that instant he sensed Damian's energy again. He had found what the jinn was bound to. But did he know what to do with it? At least the jinn hadn't sensed him yet. There were two options available: breaking it or sealing it back inside. Lloyd, not surprisingly, preferred to destroy it. Of course he couldn't just yell across the room ordering Damian to destroy it though. If everything worked out and the jinn still kept being oblivious to him, Damian would either have to wait until it was the right moment for him to say or hopefully figure it out himself.

Summoning his sword-staff he mounted atop Grayson and took into the air, where they would have a significant advantage.

Lotus quickly jump to the curtains as Lloyd took flight. She was soon in the top of the curtains staring into Lloyd's eyes. "Cats enjoy a good game of catch." As she looked at him something caught her eye. It was damain holding an object. Lotus thought for a second. She realized whatever he was holding was connected to abbud. It would only take one word to blow his cover to the djinn. "It'd be a shame if I fell and smashed against the floor wouldn't it?"

"It would." Lloyd replied as twirled his swords towards the staff end and jabbed Lotus squarely between her eyes at the same time Grayson head butted her stomach; the amount of force would effectively knock her off the curtains.

As soon as Grayson made contact with Lotus's stomach she latched on to his face with all of her claws as she did she decided to to spawn Dot on his back. As the tiger appeared it suck all of it's claws into Grayson's back. Dot then took a bite of fought feathers out of Grayson's left wing. The added weight and pain as well as loss of flight feather should have Grayson falling at any second. Dot released the wing to snap at Lloyd.

Lloyd let out a laugh. He recalled Grayson, causing Dot to fall through the air while Lloyd safely swung down via the curtains. Grayson respawned unharmed and covered the duo in a protective ball of fire.

The hairs on Maximilian's neck slowly began to rise as the sound of snarling began to emanate from the darkness before him. Three, he was out numbered, and just how strong were they? He had never seen such beasts before and without any knowledge of what their potential was or what they wanted from the actor... This was going to be rough. He needed to size up his enemy, but the actor could be in trouble, he couldn't just run unless he was willing to let the man be torn to shreds.


"Get up and run." Maximilian commanded before sliding a foot backwards. "You and myself need to get out of here together, lest you fancy yourself being turned into mush."

For a moment, Damian watched the battle, seemingly unaware as to the hints being dropped. They had clearly noticed him and yet said nothing. It wasn't until he paid attention to their fighting and odd manners of speaking that the situation began to clear up a bit for Damian, noticing the entire fight was a farce. Lotus in particular had glanced at him and given a very odd remark about falling and smashing. "Oh." It all clicked. Smash the thing. Damian raised it once more, examining its features before c*** his hands back, and hurling it into the floor.

Ms. Ignianus and Miss Rachel looked at each other then back to the boy. They both seemed hesitant, and were silent for a few moments, as if they were conversing with each other mentally; for all Daniel knew, they probably were. Meanwhile, Father Albright stood over the now bubbling cauldron, a very sad look on his face as he stared into the watery darkness.

"A sage is a very special individual," began Miss Rachel, "Someone who is born Omnivident who is able to wield the spells of the Magi, conjure the potions of a Witch, sing the sacred hymns of a Priest, commune with the Ether through The Speech."

"You my dear," spoke Ms. Ignanius coyly ,"Meet three of the five requirements of a Sage. Many others who are Omnivident become overwhelmed by the power of the Ether and typically drift into madness," she chuckled to herself, as if the imagery was quite amusing to the old witch, "And so, as you have not slipped into madness, yet, we believe you to be a fine candidate to become a sage."

Miss Rachel turned to the cauldron which now bubbled violently as Father Albright's expression continued to darken.

"Apparently we were right," she mused out loud, "Otherwise your spell would not be reacting"

"Lady Dawn, I assure you, his blood may prove to be a prime candidate for now" she glanced in the boy's direction, "but all that can change quite quickly." Suddenly, from behind them they heard a whooshing sound coming from the cauldron. Father Albright's eyes were wet, and he sat on the ground looking up at the burst of golden light erupting from the cauldron up into the air.


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The ghost was not prepared for Johnny's rapid approach, it had been transfixed on the boy who insisted to mock him in his afterlife as well as explicitly reject his demands for him to leave the junk yard in peace. The youth of today, really.

A bright blue light shot out from the phantom's mouth and eyes as the ofuda caught flame and began to burn with a light blue fire, the inscribed characters being seared into the ghostly form of the phantom even as the paper dissolved.

"Wooahhhhhhhh" moaned the ghost loudly, the various junk pieces seemed to vibrate with the ghost itself as it moaned. The ghost raised its hands towards the sky and in a brilliant flash of light it disappeared with a loud "bang", and then, all was quiet in the junk yard.

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The kettle's crash to the ground seemed to reverberate through the entire concert hall. The jinn looked up surprised, suddenly realizing what had happened. While his new general fought for his honour, another one of those devil children had found his kettle and destroyed it.

"FOOLS! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!" a wind began to stir in the auditorium, it smelled of spices and the sand, as a dust storm suddenly swirled in from one of the ventilation shafts and headed directly for the jinn, who attempted to out run it on his own.

The wind blew sand and debris everywhere, making it hard to see, but it was clear that the sandstorm had landed directly on the jinn. A red flash blinded the children momentarily and the storm had vanished. All signs of a battle of any sort disappeared as if nothing had happened.

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The man did as was told by Maximilian, he didn't even wait to see if Maximilian was following him. Sobbing and screaming, the young man scrambled out of the s**** to the upper level where Lotus, Lloyd, and Damian were. Looking up, his face was filled with terror and streaked with panicked tears as he sought to escape the hell hounds that were after them.

The beast howled as the hunt was on, their target was not the boy, so they passed him by without harming him. Only if anyone or anything chose to get in their way, would they have cause to attack. They had a mission, and they were going to see it done. Such was the simple mind of a hell hound.

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Dom and Evelyn looked up as they saw a stream of light shooting up towards the top of the dome. She sighed with relief, perhaps this is what that cooky guardian of theirs had planned from the very beginning, at least it was what she hoped.

"Dom, I'm going to have to sit out for a bit, I don't have enough energy to continue exercising these demons."

"Alright, I'll reinforce the barrier of wind that Alice has around us, I have enough energy to hold them back for a while"

Evelyn nodded as she crossed her legs and sat on the ground. She closed her eyes and focused on the wind swirling about them, seeking to use the sound to drown out all other disturbances around her as she reached deep within herself to restore her spiritual reserves. Time was of the essence.

Daniel nodded his head and watched the cauldron quietly as the two spoke. He still wasn't sure what all this meant but he decided to take it as it comes. First, the cauldron started to bubble violently, and the priest stared into it, as if searching for something. Curiously Daniel copied him, trying to see whatever the priest saw. Suddenly a wooshing sound came from the cauldron and a burst of golden light came forth. "What comes next?" He asked Ms. Ignianus.

"I'm glad that's over." Johnathan announced as he walked back over to Li who was still unconscious. That was enough for one mission. A shadow of uncertainty flashed across his face. "He's not waking up. I guess we have to carry him back?" He turned to ask his teammates. He wondered what someone would say if they saw two freshmen and a sophomore bring back a junior who was knocked out.

---

As least we don't have to worry about the clean up. Lloyd thought as everything apparently went back to normal. Plus no one seemed injured so he didn't have to take care of anything like that. However before he could completely relax, the broken down man from before rushed in followed by a hell hound. He sprang into action almost immediately. "Secure the man and protect him at all costs." There was no way they could trick their way out of it this time. As soon as they interfered somehow it would attack. And they had to protect the man. "And don't let your guard down!" He boomed as he made his way over to the man.

Logan nonchalantly brushed himself off as he picked himself up off the ground for the second time that night. For his first restless spirit, that had gone about as smoothly as could be expected. The ghost seemed none too happy about being shuffled off like that, but it would thank them later.

"He's not waking up." Johnny pointed out before the Scot had a chance to pat himself on the back for too long. "I guess we have to carry him back?"

Without hesitating, Logan moved over to his classmate's unconscious form and lifted him onto his shoulders in a fireman's carry. "Yeah. Our work here is done." he stated brusquely. Instead of waiting for a response, he immediately turned and started for the academy, beckoning Derrek and Johnny to follow with a brief wave. A particularly observant person would notice that his pace was a bit quicker than usual.

"ALICE!" Yelled up, in an eureka-esque voice yelled up, "Oh, ah, I think, I think I might be able to turn Miss Sullivan's whole house into a sort of ofuda, but it would take such a reserve of energy to activate that I'm not confident we could activate it." Tsubaki's feet were shuffling under her dress that she had summoned some time ago, but she tried to hold a cool expression. "Only two problems! We would need to corral all these... people, inside and activate it in a relatively small time frame, and I would be able to use any sigils while I did it. In fact any sort of break in concentration could ruin the whole thing."

Leaving that out for Alice's advice Tsubaki's hand subconsciously drifted to her opposite arm, before yanking itself away to form a Vis to fill a perceived gap in the wind wall.

---

"Well that was intense." Derrek voiced, though with something towards the opposite vein of 'conviction'. "Sorry about that desk thing, I was trying to swing the magnet back towards him, being iron and all. I swear that's never happened before."

Derrek was content to walk his normal pace. He knew where the academy was, push come to shove.