There's Nothing Wrong With a Little Hocus-Pocus

The feeling wasn't odd as in she suddenly fell madly in love with the beast, or something as equally distracting and disgusting as that. It was odd as in, Megan hit the ground in a crouch, lurched to her feet dizzily, and hit the ground again.

He’s trying to paralyze me! she thought furiously. And a small part of her grudgingly admitted that it was pretty much working. She struggled to her feet, actually maintaining them this time, as she stared the creature full in the eyes. Even if it had paralyzation down to an art, she wasn’t going to show it fear. The best approach is to be calm, watching his every move just as he watched hers.

“Leave the woman be,” Megan told him, in a voice much stronger than she was at the time. “I’m the one you should be worried about.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” the woman whimpered at Megan, “It’s gigantic! It will crush you underneath a single claw!”

“If you know what’s good for you, ma’am,” Megan hissed, trying to keep the creature’s attention, “you will try your best to get up and run, and you will keep your mouth closed. Don’t spout such ridiculous things. I’ve handled worse.”

Megan knew she was probably overstating it there, but she needed to convince the woman to leave, before she got more than a few scratches.

“Worse?” she squeaked.

“Ma’am!” Megan said loudly, as the beast had begun to focus on the woman again, “Get up and leave as quickly as you can. Catch this,” Megan threw her phone at the woman. “Hit number one on speed dial. When someone answers, tell them that Megan Haddix requests backup. Do you understand?”

“Y-yes,” the woman said, fumbling with the phone.

“Not here! Get around the corner, now!”

The woman finally obeyed, and she had the phone out and to her ear just as she reached the corner and flew around it. She was a pretty fast runner, Megan noted. It would be a good thing if the Protectorate didn’t draft her into their services - as in, an office job, answering phones and sending the alerts.

“Hey, you ugly thing!” Megan shouted at the beast, whose attention was beginning to stray again. He didn’t turn, but stared at the spot were the woman had been. Thankfully, she hadn’t dripped a trail of blood, but the thing could probably smell her blood if she hadn’t kept running. The Protectorate would pick her up soon, and ask her if she’d rather forget the whole thing, or keep the knowledge and the vision, or keep the knowledge and lose the vision, or work for them to help keep people safe.

“Don’t ignore me!” Megan tried again. “Just because you give up easy doesn’t mean that I do, too!”

The head swiveled toward Megan, the ghastly smell assaulting her nostrils as its red eyes examined her. “You let her get away,” the beast accused, adjusting itself so it could look at the Protector without craning its neck. “My first meal in a half a century, and you let it get away?!”

“Well, you can’t go around eating people in my Circle,” Megan retorted.

“In your Circle…? You must be this place’s…Protector.”

It spat out the word ‘Protector’ like it was some sort of foul disease, eating him alive from the inside and causing him intense pain and suffering.

“Megan Haddix,” she boldly proclaimed, even as she started to feel her magical side kick in to neutralize the paralyzation. “You are in my Protective Circle, and I would appreciate if you would not try to eat my charges.”

“Then you shall have to do!”

It lunged at Megan, and it was all she could do to force her body out of its path.

“You can move!” it said, and Megan thought she detected a hint of a thrill of joy in the tremor of its voice. “This is interesting. Although I fear the correct terminology is that you can barely move…”

“I thought it was rare that you needed backup, Megan,” a voice called from above. “But it’s even rarer to see one of these.”

Megan could have breathed a sigh of relief. They sent who Megan viewed as the most talented of the Protectors that helped monitor the Circle she cast.

“Don’t meet his eyes!” she called in a firm voice, so as not to show how relieved she really was. “He can paralyze you!”

“Damn!” another voice came from a rooftop nearby. “That’s the one that the Protectorate nicknamed Bowser fifty years ago!”

Megan’s blood ran cold as ‘Bowser’ looked around at her backup. She remembered the file, and how could she have been so blind as not to remember the photo? Maybe he’d been smaller then…fifty years can do wonders.

“The one that killed seven Protectors?!” the first of her backup team cried in astonishment. “That Bowser?”

“The same,” the information member of the backup team replied.

“Damn!” the other one cried, “You’ve got us in a pickle now, Haddix!”

“Call in another team if you need to!” Megan yelled back as Bowser returned his gaze to her. She forced herself to stand straight, even under his paralyzing gaze. The best thing to do, she told herself once again what she’d learned in her Protectorate classes when she was seven years old, is to stare him in the eye and prove that you’re not going to back down, even if you’re fighting a losing battle. It was the first thing Protectors learned - besides the obvious Do Not Turn Your Back On The Enemy, that is.

“You are a brave little Protector,” Bowser said, his facial features contorting in a grimace that Megan was sure was a smirk, or a sneer, or something like a cross between them. “Don’t you hear your friends? ‘That’s Bowser!’ ‘That’s the one who killed seven people fifty years ago!’ Don’t you hear them, Megan? Or is death so appealing to you?”

“ ‘I never back down from a challenge,’ ” Megan recited from the Protector’s Code. “ ‘I will fight to the death to ensure the safety and well-being of all those in my charge. I am a Figther, a Keeper of Peace, but most importantly, I am a Protector.’ ”
Bowser was not amused.

“This is Assistance Squad B, on our dispatch to assist Protector Megan Haddix, do I have a copy?”

The information member, who Megan had recognized as her cousin - the one who had called her earlier, Mercedes - was trying to send for more help. Bowser heard, too, and turned his gaze up.

“Nuh-uh,” Megan jumped, willing her legs - which were screaming in protest, still partially paralyzed - to propel her. She caught a few of Bowser’s stained fangs in her grip, and her unexpected weight dragged his head back down. Megan let go and staggered away, wiping a drip of his saliva - which burned, like acid - from her right cheek as she did so. “Your fight is with me.”

She heard a rumble in Bowser’s throat, which must have been a chuckle.