The Fiction Games

Chapter Twenty-Six - The Plan in Motion

Peter and Susan hopped off the Great Cat once he reached the double doors. The ice that stood as castle walls were almost thin enough to see through them, and Susan jumped when she found the statues in the courtyard. Never did she lower her bow, scrunching her nose as if there was a foul scent. "I have putrid nostalgia about this place."

"We won't be here long," said Aslan.

"This place won't be here long, either," Peter said.

Across the courtyard, a blanket of snow covered a staircase, where another pair of doors blocked the throne room. Aslan was the first to move. The Pevensies flanked behind him. Gruesome busts seemed to be able to unfreeze themselves, their blood caked fingers and mouths at their throats. Susan loaded her bow to equip her in imaginary battle, but Aslan shook his head. "The spell is permanent. Weapons are useless here."

Aslan's green eyes focuses on the double doors. His purring had ceased. "Jadis, I am the Great Lion. The creator of Narnia. The former King and Queen have accompanied me. I wish to have a word with you and the Lord of the Dead."

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Trees ripped off their roots and flattened, the timber providing an adequate landing strip for the hovercraft. Harry, on his broomstick incongruous to his Firebolt, found the black air ship secured with at least a dozen guards distracted by something in their ears. As Harry slowed his broom and kept close between the thick foliage of the trees, he could hear snippets of their reports.

"Sentinels have landed in the arena...Cornucopia still holds the tributes... Hades is still in contact...No sign of retaliation... Affirmative..."

Soldiers began marching up the hovercraft. Harry slid his wand out of his pocket. The two robots -- sentinels?-- scoured the forest, one going one direction and the other towards the cornucopia. Harry saw the second sentinel knocking over trees, pressing to the melting ice castle. Soon the Capitolians will leave on the hovercraft, and watch on their fancy televisions the sentinels annihilate each of the remaining tributes. Harry toiled with his array of spills.

A soldier held his fingers to the earpiece. He burst, "A tribute has been spotted! Look alive."

White coats spewed from the interior and trained their guns to the sky. Harry could've sworn a nozzle landed in his direction.

Eventually they would find him, Harry thought. Might as well reveal himself.

He flung a column of red flames at their feet. "Confringo!"

Three soldiers' pants combusted to flames, with the men frolicking about to extinguish the fire. Harry dove his broomstick to the open air, where soldiers who recovered had him in range. They let their bullets tear through the air, and Harry whipped in circles around them. At least the broom was as fast as his Firebolt, he thought.

"Expulso!" Harry laid another spell in the ranks. When it smacked the grass, the spell detonated, carrying unfortunate soldiers (who didn't need broomsticks to fly) through the air and land ten feet on their backs.

Once it was safe to leave the air, Harry went to all unconscious soldiers and placed a Freezing Charm over them for good measure. He kept the sentinels towering over the trees in sight as he jumped inside the hovercraft.

Harry nearly fainted at the thousands of buttons spaced inches apart on one control pad. It would take magic just to figure out what those buttons correspond.

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Rick Grimes contemplated whether his blaster was able to cut through sentinel armor. The lazer this contraption could conjure is unlike anything he had ever seen, but the two robots were also alien to him. In case it didn't make a dent, Rick sheathed a lightsaber in his back pocket, and headed for the trees. The shake of their feet rustled the leaves, but the tribute did not step a foot further. In one motion he pivoted and darted back to the cornucopia, much to Michonne's confusion.