The Magik Taxi!

JASMINE and the others walked out of the restaurant and went across the street. She wasn't a hundred percent confident in this plan, but it was the best they had. They made their way to the homeless man, who was holding a tin can. Jasmine dropped a single glowing coin into the can.

He looked into his can, then looked up at Jasmine, he studied the four of them for a moment, then spoke through a scruffy beard so thick they couldn't see his grimy teeth, "Go inside!" he gestured with his head down an alleyway to a dead end.

Before Ryan could ask 'go inside where?' A large garage suddenly manifested at the end of the alley, beside a large bay door was a regular door with a large sign at the top that read;

NAIVERTO'S MAGIK COURIER SERVICE!

For magi, necreans and all such on the move!

Ryan looked at the others and shrugged, "You've got to admit; this is pretty cool."

Inside was like any other garage; on the far wall was a wall-mounted map of the world, with smaller maps pinned around it, the other walls of the garage were plastered with posters of pinup girls either skimpily clad or tastefully nude, and in the middle of the garage was a nineteen twenties era New York yellow taxi, but the taxi had been tricked out. There was a large engine sticking out of the hood, there were two extra tires on the front. The taxi was painted brilliant yellow with racing stripes. On the top of the taxi, was the box lamp which said 'TAXI'. There was space enough for two other vehicles in the garage, but the others were probably out on jobs too.

From the office in the back, someone stirred and stumbled out, revealing himself to be a large man with wide shoulders and thick, beefy arms, he wore grease stained overalls, his hair was a crow's nest of brown hair and his eyes were a piercing fiery orange, he leaned against the doorway, yawning while he sized them up.

"Oh, hello, what can I do you for!" he said in a thick Canadian accent

Jasmine spoke up, "we want to hire a car."

He looked at her, then walked over to the cab and slammed on the roof of the taxi,

"Hey Bill!" he yelled, "We have customers!"

Jasmine looked inside and saw a skeleton at the wheel, it turned its head to her, wearing thick tinted driving goggles over its eyes and a gold tooth.

He laughed, with the voice that most horror movie skeletons have, "Well kiddies, where to?"

"First off," Jasmine said, "I'm no kiddy, I'm a ranger. Secondly, we want to go to Quebec."

Bill the skeleton made another shrieking laugh, "Wow, that's a long way!"

"That'll cost you two coins," the man commented, "each."

The way he said that made Ryan wonder how much a coin was worth. Those glowing coins were a common medium of exchange among the magikal community.

"Well we have a lot of money," Jasmine said, "but if you keep yammering, I guess we'll have to take our business elsewhere."

"Wait," the man sighed, "sorry for the lack of manners, I just woke up."

"It's fine," she said, placing eight coins into the man's outstretched hand.

"Alright," Jasmine said, turning to the group, "get in, guys,"

Jasmine got shotgun, and the others stayed in the back. There was just enough room for all of them. Bill turned on the ignition the oversized engine roared, the bay doors opened and the cab lurched slowly forward, turning into the road. As the cab turned onto the road, it blasted down at mach speed. Jasmine had just put on her seat belt when she was thrown into the seat. She caught the landscape passing away in microseconds. Behind her, someone was yelling, "YEAH! This. Is. AWESOME!" She figured it was Ryan, only that idiot would yell something like that.

They drove down the road, dodging oncoming traffic, maneuvering through detours and swerving through corners.

Simon stuck his head in the front, "Hey, so what you got under the hood?" he asked, "about three hundred ponies? Delta-seventeen?"

If Bill wasn't a skeleton, Jasmine was sure he'd be smiling, "Well aren't you the observant one? Yeah, it's a D-17, Naiverto had to tweak it a bit to rev it up to three-fifty."

Simon's eyes lit up, "Nice! This is incredible. The amount of engineering skills needed to do that is unbelievable! Where did Naiverto learn that? Is he certified?"

Bill shrugged, "I don't know, kid. I just stay here and drive the cab, the same for the other two bone transporters."

"So you can't leave?" Ryan asked

"Nope!" Bill said, "I died in the 40s, Naiverto found me a decade ago and hired me to drive for him, bound me to this cab."

"I thought necromancy was illegal," Christie said

"He wasn't the one who brought me back, though," Bill said, "so he could legally hire me as an undead."

Jasmine stared at Bill, he was the second living skeleton she'd ever met. She didn't realize how little she knew about G.

Jasmine watched as places, people and things passed in a blur.

Ryan asked something, "Why Canada?"

Bill turned his skeleton head forty-five degrees, "Hmm?"

"Why did you set up in just Canada?" Ryan clarified, "You'd make a killing in the States."

Bill hit the brakes, and despite traveling at like a million miles per hour, the cab stopped on the dime. Everyone was thrown forward.

Bills skull did a one eighty turn and faced Ryan, "I didn't choose Canada, Naiverto did. And I kind of like it here, it's quiet and peaceful, and the weather… it's heaven on these bones. It's much better than that festering excuse for a country you call the U.S."

Ryan held up his hands, defensively, "I didn't mean any disrespect man, Canada is great. The maple syrup and the hockey here are fantastic!"

"That's better!" Bill turned to the road and the car went from 0-300 in 2.3 seconds, again throwing everyone into their seats.

… )]≥( …

In the back seat, Ryan was watching the rest of Canada go by in flashing blurs. They stopped at all the red lights, slowed down to the speed of a sports car, at turns and even waited for little children to cross the street.

Ryan held his backpack in his hands, clutching it tightly as if to make sure it didn't fall out of the window.

He looked beside him, Christie was sitting between him and Simon, one hand gripping her seatbelt, the other hand griping Ryan's thigh. Ryan looked at her, the way she closed her eyes in fear, the way her lips pushed deeper together. She was quite pretty, actually, she was pretty cute, if Dean had seen her, he would've totally hit on her.

With a start, Ryan realized that it had been at least a whole month since he had thought about his best friend from his old life. He wondered how him and his family were doing?

Christie opened her eyes and caught Ryan staring at her, she smiled, which brought out her features even more. Crap! Why did she have to be so damn adorable?

"Are you guys having a moment?" Simon asked smirking

She blushed and let go of his thigh, "Uh… no! I just caught him staring at me!" She quickly said

Ryan was still mute as she wrote him off, he felt kindda hurt, but he was glad he didn't have to do that to her. As Christie started talking with Simon, so Ryan closed his eyes and began to sleep.

In his dream, he found himself in a dark cave. The ceiling was so high up that is was lost in the darkness. In the middle of the large chamber was what looked like a stone sarcophagus in the middle of the room, it was open and inside were a pile of bones.

All of a sudden, three shrouded figures stepped out from the darkness and approached the sarcophagus. As the stood in a circle around the open sarcophagus, the ground trembled as a large glowing sigil appeared on the ground, as blood bubbled up from inside the sarcophagus, filling it to the brim. Around the sarcophagus, the three figures crumbled to dust, as energy flowed from their remains to the sarcophagus.

From the overflowing tub of blood, a muscular arm reached out, grasping at the air, the oddest thing about the arm was that the hand had six fingers, with a thumb on either side. A second six-fingered arm reached out, grasping the lip of the sarcophagus, and trying to pull its body out. The body stood up and the first thing Ryan noticed about it was that it was missing a head, as it tried to step out of the sarcophagus, its body came apart, with flesh melting off the bones and pieces plopping back into the blood until the body came undone and collapsed back into the sarcophagus. All at once, the blood inside started to bubble and boil before it violently exploded, vaporizing instantly and leaving only the bones inside.

Even though he wasn't sure what he had just seen, Ryan was sure he had witnessed something completely and fundamentally wrong. He felt that deep inside his soul.

The remains of figures that had started this mess started to stir, and soon reconstituted themselves somehow, standing around the sarcophagus, their body language dissatisfied.

"The body is incomplete!" The first said, it was too cracked to be human and seemed to be coming from the whole cavern.

The next one spoke in a voice that seemed more feminine, but not at all human, "The true equation is lost."

The final figure turned its head in Ryan's direction, "The broken one will come, he will make whole--!"

Suddenly, a new voice joined, drowning out all the others, cutting through the dream itself, then the whole dream flipped and Ryan could hear this new voice loud and clear; "RYAN! WAKE UP!"

… )]≥( …

Ryan's eyes opened and found himself flipped sideways, held in place by his seatbelt, also the cab was split in half with the front of the cab sprawled on the road a good twenty feet away. Jasmine was out, with her crossbow drawn. Ryan looked around, Simon and Christie were out, Christie was crouched before him, with the magik rifle slung over her back, while Simon seemed to be covering her and holding a… Ryan rub his eyes to be sure he wasn't seeing things, was Simon holding a flaming chainsaw?

He undid his seatbelt and fell out of the cab, as Christie helped him up, he saw what Jasmine and Simon were glaring at. It was a large monster about the size of a bull, its head was narrow and angular with a blade-like snout, looking like some kind of natural armor. When it growled, steam poured out of its maw showing its row of large stud-like teeth and tar-like drool. It's back was covered in thick spikes that went down to its tail, and its feet were large toed stumps like those of an elephant or rhinoceros. There was a bright orange glow coming from inside its body, its skin steamed in reaction to the cold.

Ryan drew Draxonn with a silent SHRINK, as the creature noticed his presence and growled, bristling the spikes along its back.

"What the hell is that thing!?" Ryan yelled, while keeping his eyes on it

"It's a vragtir." Christie said, "they're a rare carnivorous types of ravager, naturally suited to cold climates."

"Carnivorous?" Ryan scoffed, "Have you seen those teeth? It should stick to eating cud."

"Its teeth may not be suited to ripping flesh, but they are more than capable of crushing the hardened slag that used to be you after it kills you by regurgitating its molten saliva onto you." Christie recited, as if reading from a manual,

"Yikes." Ryan recoiled

"Yeah," Jasmine said, "Just because I can't rip you apart doesn't mean it doesn't still want to eat you, trouble is; ravagers get to be creative."

The vragtir roared fiercely at them, and suddenly the Ryan could feel the temperature increase. Seriously, how hot was it? It charged forwards, towards Jasmine, who held her ground, firing off bolt after magik bolt at the vragtir, but its armored head was very effective at tanking the hits. Luckily, all the magik attacks that went off in its face distracted it so Jasmine was able to get out of the way of its charge as it rammed into the front half of the cab once more, completely crushing it this time.

"Dammit, that thing's a tank." Jasmine growled as she backed towards the rest of them. "Christie, you've read up on exotic ravagers, right?"

"Y-yeah," Christie stuttered, "but only out of mild curiosity, not strategic interest."

"But you also have an eidetic memory," Jasmine reminded her, "so is there anything you read about the vragtir that we can use?"

"U-um," Christie muttered to herself as she tried to remember

The beast barreling towards them once again, added further urgency to the request.

"Anything at all, would be good right now." Simon grunted as he ran his chainsaw across its abdomen while Jasmine once again attracted its attention, all to little success. The teeth of Simon's chainsaw were already melting after coming into contact with the molten ooze extracted from the moderate wound he had managed to inflict on the beast. Ryan had taken the opportunity to strike with Draxonn, but its skin was surprisingly tough, and the wound it left behind was sealed by the molten ooze.

"I'm not good under pressure!" Christie snapped back, fumbling with her rifle. "they love winter; the colder it gets they hotter they can go."

Hmm, they liked it cold on the outside? Ryan found himself thinking, he pulled out his wand, pointing it at the vragtir.

"What are you doing?" Jasmine demanded looking over at him

"I think I can increase the temperature around it," Ryan explained, "I figured since it likes the cold, it must hate the heat."

"That's not a completely terrible idea." Jasmine comments, recalibrating her darts. "let's see how much heat it can take?"

With that Jasmine started firing flame bolts, similar to the fire rounds Christie began shooting from her musket. Red shots of energy began to plaster its body. Simon, set aside the remains of his half-melted chainsaw and pulled out something else from his workbag; a spary canister.

"What's that?" Ryan asked

"Blavac gel. Highly explosive, extremely sticky." Simon said, "I supped it up with a super sprayer."

Simon plastered a thick coat of milky gel onto the scrapped chainsaw, then he pulled three grenades from his bag and stuck them in the paste, he pulled out the pin from one of them and threw the chainsaw at the vragtir, who caught it in its mouth like a dog with a Frisbee, chomping down on the ruined machine with a grating CRUNCH! A few seconds later, the pop grenades exploded, triggering the gel, which caused a larger explosion in the vragtir's face, setting it on fire, which it was NOT happy about.

It reared in rage and continued to charge at them, but it was kinda slow and not very maneuverable, so once it was close enough, they just had to duck out of its way. The trouble was that the massive beast didn't seem to be running out of steam while the others were slowly being worn down from this very extreme game of tag. Quite a few times they had to reignite it, because its constant thrashing around into the snow banks that surrounded them kept smothering the fires they started.

"This is getting ridiculous." Simon said

"Do you have any ideas?" Jasmine challenged

"Actually…" Simon paused for a second, "I think I do."

Ryan used his want to conjure a fireball, which he sent at the ravager

"Hey, lead it here," Simon called out to him.

As the monster started to give chase to Ryan, he looked over to see Simon with another chainsaw in hand [Seriously, where did he get the room for two chainsaws? And where did he even get chainsaws?]

"Like I have a choice?" Ryan grumbled to himself as he ran towards Simon.

The girls seemed just fine leaving the vragtir to Ryan to handle [typical, the girls leave me to do all the hard work] Simon, on the other hand, was using his new chainsaw to cut a tree.

Ryan had just managed to clear it when he yelled, "Timber!" and the tree fell on the ravagers back.

"That'll only stun it," Christie noted, "We need something that's gonna stick."

"Any other ideas?" Ryan asked, now visibly out of breath.

Then, from the woods, a large fiery blast of bright blue energy soared through the air and struck the monster in its back, but unlike the other shots, it actually got through. The vragtir bellowed in agony and outrage as another shot burst through its torso, and another. scrambling around as more shots continued to rain down on it.

Jasmine observed the attack, they weren't meant to kill the monster, they were striking key nerve clusters in its body, bringing it intense pain, but no fatal wounds; this was meant to torture the creature.

After about a dozen shots had brought the ravager down, covered in its own molten blood, which also sizzled around the asphalt, a final shot went right through it skull, finally putting it out of its misery.

As the ravager disintegrated, they stared in silence, still alert as they could hear the rustling in the bushes.

"Show yourself!" Jasmine demanded drawing her crossbow and looking around.

"Well I'm pretty sure the point of hiding in the bushes was so they didn't have to show themselves." Ryan commented

She gave him a dirty look and he shut up. Then, three figures emerged from the trees.

The first was a girl that could be Jasmine's doppelganger, only inverted colors; she had jet black hair with Caucasian complexion and her eyes were jade green. The guy to her right was short, chubby with blond hair, his green eyes were hidden behind light glasses. The last guy was a tall and arrogant-looking with black hair, and squinted eyes. They all wore the same matching uniform, dark gray and red tunics with cargo trousers and boots complete with gray cowls with red trimmings. They were Rangers.

The girl at the lead held a musket rifle that looked way too cool, there was a few seconds of silence, then Christie broke the silence, "That a night raven S900 series, isn't it?" She said, her eyes on the rifle.

"Why, yes it is" said the chubby blond kid as he adjusted his glassed and smirked, "I'm impressed that you would know about such firepower."

"How did you take down that vragtir?" Simon asked

"A combination of armor-piercing, high incendiary, and acidic magik-infused rounds." the Jasmine lookalike replied

"Magik fusion? That's inspired." Christie gawked

"Who are you?" Jasmine demanded, less awed.

"I am Andrea Westerly, ranger junior A-class, of the 46th sanctum." the second Jasmine replied

Jasmine made a face that said Oh crap, and Ryan understood why; they were meant to stay discrete since they hadn't been given authorization from the foty-sixth to be there.

"What are you doing here" Jasmine asked again

Andrea gave the same look Jasmine had given Ryan the first time they'd met, like she'd just asked the most stupid question ever, "We were tracking that vragtir in this sector, we had it in our sights, when it caught a scent… a strong scent."

Jasmine, Simon and Christie all looked at Ryan, "What?" he huffed, sounding offended, "I had a shower before we left."

The tall dude looked puzzled, "Left where?"

Jasmine cleared her throat, no point in hiding now.

"We have come from the 45th sanctum," she explained, "I'm Jasmine Sumner, ranger senior B-class."

"The White Fang? You're quite famous," said the blond guy, with that same condescending look, "you forty-fives are a long way from home. Don't suppose you got yourselves lost."

"Samuel, quiet!" Andrea barked slightly turning her face towards him

"Yes ma'am!" Samuel said standing at attention.

Jasmine and Andrea gazed at each other, [it was like looking in a weird funhouse mirror]

"With our hunt interrupted, we should get back to base." Andrea said

"What about them?" Samuel said pointing at Ryan and the bunch

Andrea examined them, "They're coming with us."

"Uh, thanks for the hospitality, but we really need to be on our way," Ryan said, "we're on an assignment of utmost importance and all-"

"Oh, you misunderstand. That wasn't a request." Andrea said holding up her gun at Ryan's chest, "You 45s are not authorized to be here, otherwise we would've been informed of your presence, yet here you are, causing all this trouble. I'm sure we'll settle this whole thing once we get back to our sanctum, which isn't that far from here, but as of right now, you are all prisoners of the 46th."

The other two raised their weapons.

Jasmine sighed, then raised her hands in surrender. Simon and Christie did the same.

So much for staying out of trouble.