so there was this deck of cards, right

[lexicality]

Jessica's house is cute. Lexi could see doing a lot of her homework here, listening to the calming chatter of gossip and getting help from Jessica on math (Bella's no help there) and helping Jessica on English. Forks isn't so bad. She doesn't mind the rain as much as Bella does.

Jessica goes to pee before they even start their assignment, after just introducing Lexi to her mom and dad as "one of Chief Swan's kids", and Lexi doesn't want to do work by herself or she wouldn't have come over in the first place. She sits on the couch and plunks her bag down and waits. There's a random deck of cards over there; she picks it up and flips through it. She's been trying to learn to bridge-shuffle.

Comments

[incanted]

Bella continues her fly-aim-fly-aim pattern. "Should I be doing anything I'm not?"

[cardistry]

"I'm getting about two percent of the power output I'm used to," he frets. "I don't know what's wrong, but - it would probably help if you cast some of these with me. Sorry about the incantation," he adds.

[incanted]

"I'll deal. FUCK YOU!" she hollers at the planet-destroying white-haired dude.

[cardistry]

This time, the blast of energy is much thicker and brighter, and leaves a deep scar in the earth where it strikes. The trees are also taking a serious beating.

"That's more like it," says Brilliance with satisfaction.

[incanted]

Bella flies forward to relocate the blasted opponent. "Where are we?" she asks.

[cardistry]

The white-haired dude rises up out of the blasted dirt. He looks kind of pissed.

"I don't know," says Brilliance. "Still on Earth. The farthest from bystanders that a short-range transport spell could take us."

[incanted]

"Fuck you!" Bella incants at the white-haired dude, and then she circles around to get him again from another angle. "Fuck you!"

[cardistry]

The white-haired dude manages to let off an answering energy blast.

"Shield!" says Brilliance, and the counnter-rotating circled pentagrams appear facing the blast. It pushes the shield back a few feet in the air, and Bella and Brilliance with it, but doesn't break through.

[incanted]

"Fuck you fuck you," mutters Bella, zooming faster, since it doesn't seem to matter how loudly or enthusiastically she says it and since she's getting the hang of aiming, "fuck you."

[cardistry]

The first two don't manage to knock the white-haired man out of the sky.

The third one does.

[incanted]

Bella zips forward and aims Brilliance straight down.

"Fuck. You."

[cardistry]

The blast pins the white-haired figure against the ground.

When the multicoloured glow fades, the white-haired dude glows white all over, and then the white collects into a small rectangular shape that rises up out of - someone's - chest. The light fades; the shape is a pack of cards.

[incanted]

Bella descends.

And she recognizes a face.

"Lexi!" she cries. "Lexi - Lexi -" She lands, drops Brilliance, and falls forward onto her knees to lean over her sister.

[lexicality]

"Oh," says Lexi, dazed. "I found you. I was looking for you. I found a pack of cards that said it had limitless power. And I thought that sounded like something you should have."

[incanted]

Bella sobs and pulls her twin up into a hug.

[lexicality]

"You're dressed funny," observes Lexi. "And I thought I'd wait and bring you the cards - but it said it couldn't wait - so I figured I'd take it and then I'd let you boss me except on weekends - but then turned out I didn't know how to drive the thing."

[incanted]

"Lexi, there is some seriously screwed-up magic crap going on," says Bella, "is why I'm dressed funny - and why didn't you call me?"

[lexicality]

"I figured you'd be driving, by then," Lexi blinks. "...The car, I mean, not the limitless power."

[cardistry]

Brilliance, meanwhile, shifts from a staff back into a pair of jokers and tucks himself into the rest of the deck.

It glows white; the white glow cracks and shatters and falls away; it glows in Brilliance's every-colour instead.

"Fuck, that's better," he sighs. "Thanks, Bella."

The glow fades, leaving the deck a different colour from when it started - black and white reversed, a magician's deck. The front of the pack says 'Ghost'.

[incanted]

"Did you fix the programming issue?" Bella asks him.

[lexicality]

"Programming... issue?"

[incanted]

"I don't completely understand it myself, but Brilliance here is some kind of magic weapon, he comes apart, the part with a personality isn't on board with weapon-ing but it got split, I found the personality and you found the rest."

[lexicality]

"I guess that explains why it talked like a robot?"

[cardistry]

"Yep!" says Brilliance. "No more nasty control program. I'm freeeeeeeeee," and the deck leaps up into the air and flies around in a gleeful circle.

[lexicality]

"But, I wanted to give Bella limitless power so she can feed cancerous grandmas and heal starving orphans or whatever," says Lexi, "was it lying, or what?"