Page 53 of Langiappe & Lost Legends

"No pressure," Dani muttered as she took her position.

Dea snorted and added, "Just world-ending consequences if we mess up."

The Lost Legends hit our outer defenses hard enough to make my teeth rattle. In the house a few feet away, I heard my collection of empty cans topple. The wards held, but I could feel them straining. We'd designed them to fail gradually. It would allow us to draw our enemies deeper into our trap like the world's most dangerous game of supernatural Red Rover.

"They're going for it," Kota whispered. "They followed the trail of breadcrumbs right to us. Also, is that one wearing a top hat? Because that's just excessive."

"Evil fashion choices aside," I said, "they're playing right into our hands. Ego will do that to you."

The first ward fell with a sound like breaking glass mixed with a cat choir having an existential crisis. The Lost Legends pressed forward. Each step they took brought them closer to the center of the circles. My hands itched to toss the potion. The problem was before they were all inside the middle, it would be pointless. The ones at the rear of their pack could get away.

"Second ward down," Dani announced. "They're getting cocky. And that top hat is definitely a fashion crime against nature."

"Good," Dea said softly. After her experience between realities, she had a score to settle. "Let them think they've got us scared. Though I have to agree about the hat."

The final ward collapsed just as the first of the Lost Legends reached the middle of the guardian circle. Their leader, the one who'd stolen the crystal originally, stepped forward. She bent down and picked up the Larmes du Bayou. It pulsed with a sickly purple light that made my caffeine-addled stomach do backflips.

"Did you really think you could undo our work?" she asked with a sneer. "We've spent centuries perfecting this power."

"Honey," I drawled, channeling every ounce of Southern sass I possessed, "we're about to show you what real power looks like. Also, your friend's hat is an affront to good taste in every reality."

I nodded to Phi, who activated the first sequence. The guardian circles blazed to life. Their pure energy cut through the Lost Legends' corruption like sunlight through the fog. The spirits of the plantation's protectors appeared around the outside of the circles. They formed a cage of sorts around the Legends as they activated the hidden sigils on the ground. Their bodies solidified as they lent their power to our efforts.

"Now!" I commanded. Power surged through our sister-bond a second later.

We moved as one, magic flowing between us like electricity through a circuit. The artifacts we'd gathered amplified ourconnection to the crystal's true purpose. We did multiple things at once. We channeled cleansing energy and the intent to lock these assholes in neverland. Reality bent around us as we forced open a gap between dimensions. We made sure hundreds of them were layered together like pages in a book that should never be read.

The Lost Legends realized too late what we were doing. They tried to retreat, but the circles and the guardians had them trapped. Their corruption worked against them and made them vulnerable to the very between-spaces they'd tried to use as weapons. "You can't," their leader snarled as reality started to fracture around her. "You'll tear everything apart!"

"Actually," Phi corrected, "we've got some pretty excellent calculations suggesting otherwise. Want to see my notes? They're color-coded. I even used sparkly gel pens for the really good parts."

The crystal pulsed in the leader's hands. It was fighting against her corruption as our cleansing energy went to work. It responded eagerly to our combined power. It remembered its true purpose. The Lost Legends had twisted its harmonics, but they couldn't change its core nature any more than I could give up caffeine entirely.

"Hannah," I called out as reality rippled around us like a pond in an earthquake. "Now!"

The guardian spirits surged forward. Their power mixed with ours in ways that probably broke several laws of physics. The circles blazed brighter than ever as we enacted the final phase of our plan. Everything paused for one blinding second. Then, the crystal tore free from the Lost Legends' grasp. It spun through the air like the world's most dangerous disco ball. Their corrupted forms began to unravel as the spaces between realities pulled at them. They fought back. Evil megalomaniacs neverwent quietly. Especially not ones with questionable fashion sense.

"Like I said," I told their leader as she began to fade, "this is what real power looks like. The kind that's freely given, not stolen. Also, your taste in hats is terrible."

The spaces between realities closed around them like a book snapping shut. Their screams echoed through dimensions that shouldn't exist before finally fading to nothing. Where they had stood, only empty air remained. However, if you looked closely, you might see the occasional ripple of what could have been.

The crystal floated gently into my outstretched hands. Its light was pure and clean once more. The corruption was gone. It had been burned away by the combined power of our family bonds and the guardians' protective magic.

"Holy shit," I breathed as the dust settled. "We actually did it."

"Was there ever any doubt?" Dre asked, though she was swaying slightly from magical exhaustion.

"Several," Dani replied honestly. "I counted at least twelve moments where I thought we were all going to die horribly. Thirteen if you count Lia's last caffeine crash."

"Only twelve?" Kota grinned. "You're getting optimistic in your old age. I had us at twenty minimum."

Phi pulled out her detection device and grinned. "The temporal readings are stabilizing," she reported. "The rifts are sealing themselves now that the corruption is contained."

"And the Lost Legends?" Dea asked. She was still pale from her ordeal.

"Trapped between moments," Hannah confirmed as she materialized fully. "The spaces between realities will hold them far more securely than any earthly prison. They wanted to exist outside of time? Now they have their wish. Though I can't guarantee what happened to the top hat."

I looked down at the crystal in my hands. Its power hummed in harmony with our family bonds. The pure light pulsed gently. There was nothing left of the sickly corruption it had been tainted with. "Think they learned anything from this?"

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