The Not-So-Holy Grail War

|| Part Three ||

I wake up to find myself on a small bed beside an ocean. My head is killing me and vision is still wonky. I pull the covers up more and try to fall back asleep. I do, for about ten minutes until a owl screeches as it flies by. I sit up and unknowingly smack Judar in the head and knock myself back out.

When I next wake up, Judar is sitting beside the bed seeming to be asleep now. It's early morning and while I still feel tired, I get up. It's a slow process, but I get untangled from the blankets, picking the top most one up and wrapping it around myself, even if... wait, where the hell are we?

I look around, the ocean is to my right and palm trees are scattered through the area. We're in a small fishing shack that only has a small lantern overhead for light. It's flame flickering with a breeze that blows through the broken windows. When did we get to an island? I had no idea, being out cold and all that. But I could smell salt water and sand littered the wooden floors. I walk around the bed and stop in front of Judar. His hair is undone out of its ties but I can still see that his forehead is red from where I'd accidentally hit him.

Feeling bad about that, I disappear and show back up with a small bag of ice wrapped in a towel. (Which, btw, I had to go all the way back to my timeline to get). I sit back down on the bed, close to where his and place it on his forehead. Startled by how cold it is, he wakes up and takes it from me.

"There's better ways to have woke me," he says.

"Yeah, I coulda just threw it at you." I reply, then change my tone. "Sorry about it."

"I probably needed it." He closes his eyes with it on for a while before speaking again. "You gonna ask where we are?"

"Bahamas?" I joked, I had already left and came back, realizing we're still in Egypt, just closer to the ocean side of it.

Judar smirks and shakes his head. "Just figured you'd be out for a while and didn't wants Feathers to freak out."

"I'm telling him you called him that."

"Go right ahead. Though I don't know if he's still in Egypt anymore.."

He looks at me expectantly, to offer my name. I don't.

"Why would he not be?" I ask, putting my feet under the other covers more, the wind picking up a little more speed makes the air seem cooler.

"He'd gotten a call from someone, asked if he could take it."

Of course he did, having a seperate family, a human one, meant he was gone a lot to help them out. He'd currently be in the 2000's in an underground bunker in Kansas.

"So you just took me, then."

Judar grins and hands me the packet. "You're welcome."

I take it from him. "You couldn't have if I didn't want you to, you know."

"Sure. But I'd say I won our battle."

Cala was why, I knew it. Demonic Djin are powerful and bad creatures, using them was never recommended and even Razashan warned me not to use neither Cala or Matangi, and to keep them far away from his vessel so as to not corrupt him as well. I tell Judar about this and he nods.

"I should know." a black Rukh appears, landing on his hand. About twenty more appear too, though some seem attracted to me, becoming grey and then dissolve with combustion. I watch as the little fireworks show goes on and sigh. Judar turns his head and notices them too. 

I shrug and take off my Djinn's, Cala and Matangi's, vessel rings setting them aside to see if it does any different. Now they'll land on my hand and stay grey for a longer duration before exploding.

I decide to put Cala and Matangi in spacial storage and automatically feel tired again. 

"Go back to sleep," Judar says, putting his hair back up. He then waves his wand and the time changes back to night, gravity magic moving the sun back a couple of hours.

Fall back asleep I do, this time without nightmares. Or so I think. I wake up unable to remember much of anything, everything is fuzzy.

At some point, I hear a voice explaining in broken sentences what's happened, I'd broken a rule from Heaven. Do not fight the Magi. Well sorry, it's not like it was in the handbook. I would roll my eyes in my dream if I could. A flash of light happens, making me shield my eyes. As it dissipates, I lower my hand and see a lady all dressed in a white pantsuit. Matilda. Oh God, I hate her, you know? I really do. She stares at me with her beady eyes and then gives me the 'you know what you did, hun' look and snaps her fingers at impossible speed. "You've been banished, miss D'Angelo. Like your brother, you are no longer allowed to return to Heaven. Try to come back, you will be pursued until dead."

Like I didn't see that one coming. Heaven and it's stupid rules. I never got to do anything I wanted to do. I was sick of it, my head hurt, and Matilda flashing away didn't help either. The light didn't dissipate either, just kept getting brighter like some sort of light beam to zap me out of existence.

I woke up with the same headache, metaphorically and mentally. Judar is beside me now, passed out asleep. I can vaguely remember him falling asleep there, partially. It'd been when I'd started screaming in my sleep, apparently when I was getting banished in my mind, Rukh were exploding all over the place in the shack and dark aura was everywhere. So basically the shack was an angry snow globe. And it was all from me. Judar had woken up due to it, and could only help so much with taking the Rukh away since one of a Magi's abilities is to absorb it. "You're not supposed to be more evil than me," he'd said at one point, not as if he hated the idea. 

<><><>

I was already sick of the ocean when I woke up, remembering in flashes that past versions of me also hated it. I've been in the shack so long I'd might as well have lived by it forever.

The Holy Grail War. Yes, that was why I was here now. I needed to find the next one. It was the only other option that I had. There was nothing else for me to do in Egypt. And getting my stuff out of Heaven would take a lot of time. But I did have a wish, a wish I'd longed to have granted for eons.

Before I can say anything, Judar shakes his head. "You're not."

I glare at him. "Why not?"