WHAM: Time is running out...

[Thomas O'Malley Sr]

Blood spilled from the wound on Thomas O'Malley's head as he tried to open his eyes and focus on his surroundings. He and his daughter Jasmine had been ripped from their own world and pulled through a portal into this place. His head pounded as he tried to make sense of this hellhole they had been dropped in. He could feel the magic swirling around them like a wicked winter squall. It felt foreign and sick at the same time. It was tainted and twisted and hard to grasp.

"Jasmine," he said as he reached for his daughter, the tip of her braid resting against his left hand. "Wake up, my little raven. We need to fly from this place."

"Papa, I taste metal," she said as she sat up and realized she was tasting the blood from her own facial wound as it ran into her mouth. "And..." she stammered as she pointed in front of them as a squad of red-clad men came running toward them.

"Halt! In the name of Ronan the Everlasting!" one of the soldiers shouted as he leveled his gun at Thom and Jasmine.

"Ronan?" Thom said as he looked at Jasmine and shook his head. "Where in the world are we?"

In their world, the only Ronan they knew was Thom's father-in-law, and he certainly was not a ruler of any sort.

[Jasmine Elizabeth]

Jasmine tried to get to her knees and then her feet, but she felt a pain in her shoulder as a volley of energy blasts peppered the place where she and her father had landed. {{Mama, I wish you were here}} she prayed as she pulled an arrow from her quiver, put it in her bow and let it fly.  It sunk into the forehead of one of the guardsmen, and in her soul Jasmine felt both elation and revulsion. She would gladly kill rogue demons and vampires, but she hated killing humans. She always hoped to be able to find a way to reason things out.

This just didn't seem like a time where reason was going to work at all.

"Papa, I'll keep firing as long as I can," Jasmine said as she watched her father pull his sword and use it to deflect blasts back at the guardsmen. She knew he'd launch into a proper attack soon, but until he got his opening, she'd have to keep on the offensive.

   

[Eclipse]

There was a swirl of activity toward the rear of the soldiers firing on the father and daughter clad in black leather. Light glinted off a sword as it cut through the guardsmen, and several went flying after an eldritch blast hit them.

"Edward! Go help those two! I can hold off these idiots!" Isabella yelled as her sword cut through another soldier's body. In earlier days, this would have sickened Bella, but that scared girl died a thousand deaths since then. This world was truly hell.

"Who are you?" Jasmine asked as the young man came up beside her and pushed back attackers with a force field.

"I'm Edward Priest, and that is my love, Isabella Rydenborne," Edward said as he nodded to the pair he was now protecting. "And you are?"

"Thomas O'Malley Sr. and my daughter Jasmine Elizabeth. We are Shadowhunters from another realm," Thom said as he finally got to his feet and prepared to join the assault on the guardsmen.

"Bella! I think we found the people prophesied in the Books of the Stransearai," Edward said as he bowed to them.  "You are here to lead us all to our salvation!"

"Don't scare them, Edward!" Bella said as she finally made inside the barrier. "More will come, so we should leave quickly. Just know that we are friends. Your mother, the one in this world, helped train many of us in the resistance, Jasmine."

[Jasmine Elizabeth]

"Mama?" Jasmine asked a volley of gunfire came flying at them. The man named Edward flicked his wrist and sent the bullets back toward those who had fired them. "You knew her? Before she died?"

"We'll explain when we get to where we need to be, but she saved us all, at one time or another," Bella replied as she started to form a portal to the rear of where they were standing. "She and the tengu warriors..."

"Mother was a demon in this world?" Jasmine said as she stumbled back. "A demon!"

"No, your mother married a demon," Edward started to say as he watched the portal solidify. "It is very hard to explain while getting shot at. Let's go! Please!"

Jasmine's eyes started to fill with tears. "No, Mama would not be with a demon. Not in our world. Not in any world."

"Jasmine, we need to get out of here," Thomas said as he guided his daughter to the portal. "Then we can figure out what happened." 

 

[Kai MacFeorais]

"I swear to highest heaven, you two will be the death of me!" a man in Japanese garb yelled as he came up, on horseback, and cut into the Red Guard and other soldiers that had ambushed the group before him. As the horse came to a halt, the man dismounted and looked at the quartet before him. "Shadowhunters? Why did it have to be Shadowhunters?"

"Demon!" Jasmine yelled as she sent an arrow at the man, but he caught it in mid-air and snapped it in half.

"For a moment, I swore I saw your mother standing there," the man said as he pulled a large talisman from the pockets of his robes. "The raven that flies through eternity has marked you, my child, as it has marked me. I am Kai Kawaguchi MacFeorais, bastard son of Ronan the Everlasting and a tengu priestess he mistook for a scullery maid much too long ago."

"He's is our Kari's half-brother and the one who has kept us alive since her death,"  Bella said as she went to enter the portal. "We need to leave. Now!"

As the group and the horse entered the portal, one of the soldiers sent as blast at that disrupted the flow of magic, and the group was transported to a place that none of them knew.

TBC Thom Sr., Jasmine, Bella, Edward, Kai and his horse to San Francisco, The Wicked Wolf forum

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