Okay, so "Take Back The Night" by CaptainSparklez very loosely ties in with this chapter. Really, how can I resist using one of his songs? :) It's too early for me to think up anything else to say. :P Enjoy the chapter! I promise Wag's friends figure it out next chapter. ;)

*Kay's POV*

We continued trekking through the mixed birch, sycamore, and oak trees. Our footfalls were complimented by the skitter and crunch of fallen leaves. Ilanna lit a torch she'd had the forethought to bring as the sky faded to dark blue-black.

When the moon started rising, I realized in horror that tonight was a blood moon. I had left my sword back in my tent. Echo laughed at my face when she turned to see why I had stopped. "I was wondering why you were so cool with going out tonight. Were you really so stressed out that you didn't notice?" Apparently I had been. I hadn't even recognized the tension and dark magic building throughout the day; I'd been too focused on picking the best campground. "Here, you can use my sword," Echo offered as she unsheathed her alumite rapier. Echo preferred hand to hand combat or her dagger generally. Swords weren't her thing, but "it never hurt to have one around" she would always say.

Actually, this could be a great opportunity to blow off some magical energy, I thought as I allowed sparks to course over my right hand. "No thanks. I need some magic practice." Echo grinned and re-sheathed her sword. "Where are we going? You never told me earlier."

A mischievous light crossed Echo's eyes. "You'll see. Focus on getting there in one piece."

A loud growl from a zombie nearby spurred us forward again. Echo ran with her steel dagger in hand. Illana was close behind her carrying a torch in one hand and an obsidian sword in the other. I brought up the rear, keeping an eye out for skeletons that might take a parting shot at us as we fled. My adrenaline started pumping as we raced further from camp. We broke from the trees into a meadow stained red by the moon rising in the sky. It would have been quite beautiful, if not for the score of monsters between us and the continuing forest beyond them. The meadow was sprinkled with skeletons, zombies, spiders, and creepers like they were wild flowers. Even an enderman or two strolled across the open space.

We all stared at each other for a silent moment before a skeleton took the first shot. I vaporized the projectile with a small burst of blue magic. Chaos ensued. Now, I wasn't too worried about the monsters hurting us. Rythian was a demanding combat instructor; these were nothing compared to the drills he put us through. However, I was slightly worried about accidentally hurting Echo or Ilanna with my powers. My magic had gone through a bit of a growth spurt a few weeks ago and was still growing, and I hadn't had time to fine tune my use of it. Where I intended to slay one monster, I incinerated it and left a five foot crater behind. Yeah, I need to work on that.

The zombies and creepers fell with little effort; they couldn't get close to me. A mana elemental surprised me with a stinging bolt of magic to my back, and almost distracted me enough to miss blocking an arrow from a rather large skeleton. I quickly dispatched the elemental, and focused on keeping some swift-footed spiders at bay. From then on I remembered to turn around occasionally to make sure I didn't get snuck up on again.

Echo and Ilanna were working in tandem since neither of them had magic available for use in combat. Echo darted in and out making quick disabling cuts with her dagger or sweeping the legs out from under her targets while Ilanna followed a few steps behind her, finishing off the wounded mobs with her black sword.

By the time the monsters stopped coming, I'd shrunk the crater size of my spells to 2 feet. I'll count that as an accomplishment, I thought with a satisfied sigh. I noted with unease that it looked like someone had bombed the field with all the craters I'd left. Maybe I should have taken Echo up on her offer and used her sword; it would have been a lot less conspicuous. "How much further, Echo? I love target practice as much as the next wizard, but we don't have all night. I don't like being this close to Dagrun either." This was the closest we'd been to mortal civilization since we camped a few miles from a dwarven city six months ago. I think its name was Thel Olihm. I didn't pick up much dwarvish while I was there for supplies.

"We're almost there. Another 15 minutes, tops. This way," She said, beckoning us into the trees on the far side of the clearing. True to her word, we reached a smaller clearing shortly after. As we approached it however, Echo froze behind a myrtle bush. "Someone else has been here. The circles are different. Stay out of sight," She hissed before she crept away to check out the rest of the space. I stretched to ease the aching magic burn the mana elemental had left on my back and got a good look at the clearing while Ilanna and I waited for her to return. I recognized a lot of the supplies needed for someone to practice witchery-Charlie was into it. A hut, altar, and a set of circle magic rings were carefully laid out between the trees. The setup was small enough that it would be masked nicely from anyone flying overhead by the wide canopied trees; the only way to stumble upon it was on foot.

Echo returned a few tense minutes later. "No one's around right now, but they were here earlier today. There are fresh boot tracks in the mud by the hut. I swear this place must have been abandoned for months when I found it last week. All the dust is gone now, and someone changed out one of the rings," She said pointing at the set of glowing red symbols written on the ground, clearly annoyed.

"Well, if no one's here now, let's check it out," Ilanna said, stepping out of the bushes with her sword drawn. When no witch hunters or Mianite guards appeared to challenge her, Echo and I followed, exploring the place. We were careful to avoid leaving any tracks of our own in the soft earth.

I was about to ask Echo why she'd brought me here-I knew her well enough to know the circle being changed had messed up some plan of hers-when Aduladi hooed softly from around the side of the hut. I cautiously peeked around the corner of the building to spot him perched on an oak branch above a critter snare and some void bramble. He and Jax on a branch below him were intently staring at what the snare held. "Ilanna, can you bring the torch over here?" I called quietly. "I think Adu and Jax found something."

As Ilanna got closer, Jax looked up to where Echo stood examining something on the altar and lashed his tail to one side. Echo jumped as if he'd yelled at her and ran over as well. Wait a minute. He didn't actually make a sound; how did she...? "Okay, what's the deal with you and Jax?" I whispered as she reached me. Ilanna was holding the torch out, trying to see what was in the critter snare without touching the void bramble.

"I don't know what you mean," Echo started to say stiffly. She glanced up at her monitor before changing her approach, visibly relaxing, "You know what, I was going to tell you when we got here anyways. I found a way to bind a familiar through circle magic. Jax is officially my familiar now. I was bringing you out here so you could make Adu your familiar too."

I was speechless. Binding a pet as a familiar was traditionally done as a part of the graduation ceremonies at the college. I'd never heard of a student preempting that. I mean, yes, we were stuck here indefinitely, but wouldn't there be consequences if we did get back to our own world? "Why would you do that?! You could get in huge trouble when we get back. It's cool that you found a way to do it when only high level mages do it back home; don't get me wrong."

Echo interrupted me here. "Kay, this binding is better than the one back home. This way of making a familiar basically makes Jax and Adu unkillable."

"Wait, what?"

"The way this magic works, if Jax ever gets seriously hurt, he can teleport out of danger to his own little pocket dimension until I tell him it's safe to come back. That's why I did this. I don't want to lose Jax, and I know you don't want to lose Adu. If I get punished when I get home, so be it, but I want my friend to make it home with me," Echo said with conviction.

She made a very valid point. Maybe the Board will go easy on us if we memorize the magic and bring it home for them to use on other familiars too. I was about to agree with Echo when Ilanna spoke up, "Not to interrupt, but you'll want to see this. It has to be the biggest cat I've ever seen."

Echo and I walked over to her. She wasn't lying; a huge cat was either sleeping or unconscious in the snare. "Am I crazy, or do you two feel magic coming off of that cat?" I asked after staring at the dark grey and red (?) feline for a few minutes. That's certainly not a natural color.

Ilanna nodded slowly, but when I looked over to Echo, she was staring intently at the creature with a mixture of excitement and fear in her slightly glazed eyes. That glazed look was only present when she was doing something with her powers. Echo so far only had the ability to see and talk to spirits and occasionally summon one, which frustrated her when it came to fighting (though they were extremely rare abilities in the realm of magic). She would no doubt develop more abilities as her magic matured, but for now she had to settle for "kicking butt" the old fashioned way. Why is she using her powers? There's some spell on it, but it's just a cat, isn't it?

Echo blinked, and the fog cleared from her eyes, though the mixed emotions remained. "Ilanna," she asked shakily. "Can you teleport this void bramble away? I need to get a better look at him."

Ilanna obliged, and Echo carefully approached the cat before starting to shake him gently. "Hey, wake up. I know you're in there." She quickly drew her hand back as the cat started stirring. "Kay, can you use that mind reading spell you learned on all three of us so we can understand this cat?"

"Um, sure," I replied, caught off guard. Okay, focus, Kay. Don't make their heads explode. I concentrated on using minimal magic to power the spell as I cast it, watching the others afterward for any sign that something was amiss. They don't seem to have splitting headaches; so I think it worked.

"You got it." Echo replied over her shoulder before turning her attention back to the cat she was so interested in. "Hey, can you hear me? Wake up."

The cat seemed disoriented as he opened his eyes, blinking several times before focusing on us. I felt a wave of mixed remorse and relief come off him. Then he tried to talk. All we could hear physically was a series of soft meows and chirps, but mentally was another story. Kay, Echo, Ilanna? Well, I guess if I get to see all of you again, death isn't that bad. I thought my leg would feel better though, an all too familiar voice echoed inside my head.

"Master Wag?!" I gasped as I stepped forward and knelt next to Echo. How did he even get here? I thought he got stuck back in the Realm of Mianite.

Hey! What did I tell you about calling me "Master"? I want nothing to do with that word, the cat, who was undoubtedly Waglington, retorted with his ears laid back. Why are you so surprised to see me? Everyone dies eventually, He added, bringing his ears forward again.

"Wag, we're not dead, and neither are you," Ilanna said bluntly.

He blinked a couple times in confusion and looked down at himself. A flood of negative emotions poured off him along with a string of mental curses. He switched to cursing in a different language after catching a glimpse of our wide-eyed faces. I still recognized a few choice words from my time translating old tomes in the library. After a few minutes, he calmed down and turned from anger to deep sorrow. My apologize ladies; I didn't realize you were using a mind reader spell to talk to me, He said distractedly.

"How did you get here, and why in the name of athar are you a cat?" Echo finally asked.

---Time Skip to After Story Time with Waglington---

"Okay, how's that feel?" I asked after finishing a healing spell that worked well with poisonings. I was nowhere near as good as Charlie-she had a natural affinity for healing magic-but I could still do a decent job.

Wag tentatively flexed his back leg and stood without putting a lot of weight on it before replying, Much better. Thank you, Kay.

"I try," I said with a shrug. "Now, what do we do with you? Based on what you're saying, you don't have a lot of time left."

If I know my friends, they'll have gone to get help by now. Martha didn't know I was missing; so they likely went to my brothers. Either way, they're my best bet of surviving this. I could tell by the way he said that he was not convinced he wanted to make it. His attitude really, really worried me. I'd apprenticed to Wag for a few years, and I had never seen him like this.

I turned to Ilanna who had taken it upon herself to stand guard while we freed Wag from the critter snare. It was still a blood moon after all. "Ilanna, do you think you could teleport Echo, Wag, and I partway to Wiztopia and make it back to camp to let them know what happened?"

Ilanna paled slightly at the request and thought for a few moments. "I think I could get you three about halfway there and still have the energy to teleport myself back to camp safely."

I knelt beside the cat that Wag had somehow gotten his spirit stuck in and very carefully picked him up. (Wag had warned us that he wouldn't be able to hold back if the cat part of his mind wanted to hurt us.) Echo came to stand beside me with her jaw set in determination and dagger in hand in case we teleported into trouble. I nodded to Ilanna as I stood back up. "Let's do this."