Calvin sat inside the large tower, which was supposedly not supposed to be enter, but hey! There is nothing a little magic can't do. So now, here he was, sitting on a ridge of the tower very silently, trying to listen to the outside word. Ria was in the water below him, and Kiara was in a ledge opposite to him.

The inside of the tower was about the size of a classroom, a very dark, dusty, musty and fusty classroom. Braedon would say all classrooms are dark-dusty-musty-fusty, but Calvin, respectfully disagreed.

This time, Calvin was going to be the back up plan.

And it was not fun.

In a few minutes, the horn blew, the raiders came. He heard flapping of wings and thud-thud sound above him.

So, they had learnt from past experience, didn't they?

Then he heard a splash outside them and the voice of Taylor, "Hey Cakepun, never noticed these pebbles before, did we?"

"Holy heck, yeah. It could be any of these stones."

"The kids sure are clever."

'We're not kids!' Kiara mouthed to him, and Calvin rolled around laughing on his desk sized ridge.

"Speaking of which, where are the kids?" A voice Calvin assumed to be Mr. Frog's, "I don't want to be pounced on by a werewolf again." Kiara smiled.

"Dunno. The other raiders are not having this much trouble. Well, except for Team Neon. The kids are just lounging and watching them there, and no stone in sight." 

Calvin thought back to what Susan had said about Lily's team.

"Well, I don't care what the other raiders are doing. We've got plenty of stones in sight. How do you think we'll distinguish these stones from other stones?"

"The assigned stone was smooth pebble." Calvin grinned. "Dang, all these are smooth pebbles too. I heard the air guy is a rowdy angel. They definitely made good use of that."

"Well then, we'll have to look at each stone one by one. The real stone has a mark below it."

"Are you kidding me? There are probably thousands here." 

"So? Do you have any other ideas?"

A collective sigh was heard, a splash. 

"If we find the kids, maybe that would give us an idea? Like, I don't know, we can force them into telling us where it is?"

"Won't work. The kids know there is no real danger."

"But still..."

"The kids are too smart for their own good." 

"The kids are not in any of the rooms, I checked." Mr. Frog said, "And they're not above the tower either. That only leaves inside the tower." 

Calvin heard splashing around him. And then Mr. Cakepun said, "There is no opening in the tower."

"Hmm, they would leave an opening for escape, right?"

"Damn those kids. Search the pebbles. It will be faster and better than looking for those. At least then, we'll know that we're doing anything good."

They must have agreed, because they decided on Mr. and Ms. widow to sit on the tower and riffle through the pebbles carried up by Mr. Frog, which Mr. Frog did that in the water. 

A hour passed in boredom, with small pops coming here and there as they destroyed the ruled-out pebbles.

They would run out of pebbles soon.

 He flew up to the holes at around the middle of the tower for air (camouflaged nicely by Ria) and put a mild multiplying charm. Not enough that they would notice, but a significant amount. 

He kept doing that once every hour. 

After what seemed like forever, Calvin put a multiplying charm, and then lay down on his ridge after putting a softening charm. It must've been at least half a day, because his stomach was rumbling badly. They have only drunk water from below (purified by magic), and he was feeling faint now. 

They had finished the rolls a long time ago. He closed his eyes, and before he knew it, he drifted off to sleep.

He woke up feeling fresher and hungrier than ever. He didn't know how long it's been, and regretted not wearing a watch. 

Kiara was asleep in wolf form, and Ria was sitting calmly in water. He flew down to her and whispered, "Hey!"

"Hi!" their voices echoed in the room, and sounded unnaturally loud. "You're finally up."

"How long it's been?"

"Very long. Hard to tell. You better multiply the stones. I couldn't because the water would've created a splash." 

"'kay. You can go to sleep now. I am keeping watch."

"Thanks." She said wearily, and sank to the bottom of the water.

Calvin settled down at his ledge. He looked at Kiara for a moment, before looking away, because, gods, that's creepy.

The thought about a lot of things, the pops and slashes outside the tower were now background noise to him.

He sat there for a while, an hour if he had to estimate (though it could be a lot less or lot more), when he heard voices again.

"Hey cakepuns..." Mr. Frog said. 

"Don't call me that." He grumbled. His voice sounded very annoyed and tired. 

Hah, serves you right.

"No seriously, leave those pebbles. Come down here Taylor.  I think I found something." His voice was excited, and Calvin worked up. Kiara's sensitive hearing must've picked up the voices too, because she woke up.

He heard a splash and then the sound of someone swimming. "Look at this here?"

"It's dried glue. The kids must've dropped it while sticking the tower. It seems at the perfect angle at the tower." Kiara turned wide eyes to him.

Ria was awake now too.

"No, that's what I thought to. But..." he said, "when I swam by its side, this flap opened here."

Kiara turned panicked eyes to him and looked ready to jump out. Calvin put a finger to his lips and mouthed her to calm down.

"Flap?"

"Hold your breath and come down, I'll show you."

A sharp inhalation, a splash, sounds of bubbles.

The tension in the inside of the tower was increasing.

A minute passes. 

Two minutes.

Two and a half...

A gasp.

Taylor must've been glaring at Mr. Frog, because he said, "I really thought it had the stone."

"Well, it did seem very unnatural, but whatever."

"Hey! Can anyone tell me anything?" Cakepun's voice yelled.

"False hope. Keep on with those pebbles."

Kiara and Ria turned questioning faces at him. He dug into his pocket and brought out a stone. He showed them the marking beneath it. 

Kiara mouthed 'What the heck' or it could be 'what the duck', but both fit. Ria took out her wand and silently started casting some spells.

In a minute, in the air between them, in bold shining blue letters it was written, "If you ever pull anything like this again, I'll kill you." 

Calvin mouthed 'thanks' to her. Theoretically, he knew how to do the words in air magic, but he had never tried it practically.

He focused hard and closed his eyes, and muttered the incantation in his mind.

'We sho ld att ck tem nw. Tied. Unexected. Elemnt of surpise.' 

It wasn't nearly as bright as Ria's, and it was missing more than a few letters. But the message got through. We should attack them now, they're tired and it'll be unexpected. We'll have the element of surprise.

Ria wrote, 'But why? We're good here.'

Calvin shook his head, and through pantomime and a little magic and a lot of time got the message across, "The pebbles are almost over. They've found the flap. Multiplying the pebbles now would be too obvious. So, it's better if we fight at our own convenience and time, before they break into the tower at their time. "

Kiara gave her thumbs up at him, and Ria nodded. 

Ria silently started casting spells at the bottom of the tower where they cut out and then re-stuck the door. It was very subtle, and in the present condition of the raiders, they hopefully wouldn't notice. 

After opening the hole, she frowned. She looked at Calvin then at the hole. 

What was she trying to say?

Oh, right!

He can't go in water. And opening a hole above water would be too obvious. Calvin shrugged and wrote, "A little water won't kill me."

Ria wrote back, "It will."

 Calvin knew that, but he had swam before. Nurture vs. nature? perhaps.

With the backing of Karen, he jumped into water. He had kept his wings slightly open, so he didn't make a splash. Kiara-the-wolf jumped and dived gracefully and soundlessly in the water.

Calvin didn't feel as revolted by water as he had expected. Of course, air elementals did bath every day (most of the days, but we don't need to know that) but never a full dive swim. He didn't feel any different that he was in air. He could swim in water almost as gracefully as Ria.

But now was not the time to ponder over that, he was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

He swam gracefully after Ria, his feet behind him together like a mermaid and moving up and down. Now all he needed was his feet fused together.

For some reason, Karen sent him a picture of the haunted man in the un-sunlit cave. 

But Calvin put that in the back of his mind. Now was not the time. Now was the time to end this once and for all, and get some god-damned food.

They came to the surface of the water. Kiara took deep breaths, but Calvin, surprisingly didn't feel like he was underwater at all.

Mr. Frog was in front of them, at the bottom of the bed, going through at last of the pebbles. Ria put a finger on her lips, and went to tackle him. She swam towards him, and covered him the strongest ropes she could summon. 

And those were pretty damn strong.

She picked up the man with the water, and placed him on one of the room. If she left him in water, he would somehow manage to break free. The she stood guard over the frog. He was too dangerous for her to leave.

She heard the clash of metal above her. She could see Calvin battling two of them together. Calvin felt adrenaline rush through him. Fighting two people together was hard, but he was good. Like really good.

He dodged Taylor's swipe to his right, and bent down double to avoid getting impaled by Cakepun. He put all his weight on one of his feet, and swiped the other one in a circle around him. It was a move he had seen in movies, and he had never felt like spideman more.

Taylor jumped, but Cakepun was crouching, and couldn't dodge. He stumbled, and Calvin kicked him down in the water. He could hear a mega splash. Kiara tackled him.

Now, all he needed to do was get Taylor. It then he got the surprise of him life. She turned into a werewolf.

Welp. 

He didn't know what her power was. She gave her a wolf-ish grin, and pushed him in the water. She jumped after him. But now, Calvin had her by surprise. She had expected him to get useless in water, so wasn't very aware. But he was apparently right in his element.

Water triggered some instinct in him. He swiped his hand in the water, and the wolf was pushed to the side as the water imitated his hand's motion. The wolf got hit to the side of the wall, and the wall fell over, spilling water everywhere.

Huh!

Maybe the water attack was too strong? Maybe Ria couldn't get an idea of how strong the attack was outside of water. But she looked as surprised by the water control as him. 

The water currents around him didn't affect him the least, as it rushed to get out of the fort from the fallen wall. Once all the water had spilled away, he saw Taylor unconscious in wolf form, Mr. Frog tied and knocked out by Ria and Cakepun (he never got to know his real name) lying fearfully between Kiara's two front paws. 

A horn blew in the air, "Team unity has won the round!"

He didn't know what just happen, how it happened, why it happened. But they won and that's all that matters. He could think of everything else later.