Luna’s week had been filled with study and avoiding the wedding processions. Up to now, it had all been pretty hectic. Guards were stationed everywhere, a protective barrier was put up around the city, invitations were sent, and all the rest of it. Luna was fine with it, as it did not affect her. She would not be leaving her chambers until the party tonight, anyway.

She had occasionally looked up the colt to see what he was doing, but his activities were not very notable. As he and Harris planned, they, and Jackson and Catherine, had gone with simple activities for most of the week. They went to the beach three times, where Ryan could not seem to help but leer at the females whom he believed to be attractive. He would lean in to his friends and make crude remarks about “tapping that” or other other such nonsense. They had gone to the movies, where their motion pictures were rather entertaining. Romantic comedies and action movies were what they watched. While they left the movie theatre one night, the only interesting thing of the week happened.

As the kids left, they noticed a sign. When they approached, Luna wondered what had captured their attention so easily. It was a poster for some music concert in “Weipa”, which she concluded must be a place. The concert was to star a DJ, who would play “dubstep”.

“What is this ‘dubstep’ that the kids seem to love so?” she wondered. She watched them as they deliberated on whether or not they would go. Ultimately, they did, and were already driving there now.

Besides that, Luna had been practicing her communications spells. She went into many dreams lately and telepathically spoke to her guard frequently, often harassing him in one way or another. Now, she sat on her bed, with the book her sister’s pupil mentioned, wondering excitedly.

“Oh, I do hope this works!” she said. She had nailed the spell she was looking for, and with the aid of the pool, she hoped to be able to speak with the colt. “What will I ask him, though? There’s so much...” She decided to go down to the pool, with her book, in the hopes that she could decide on specific questions.

She went down the stairs to the pool and sat with ferocious thought as she watched the events of the colt’s life unfold before her.

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Not having a license to drive in Australia, Ryan opted to sit in the back seat of the car while they drove to Weipa. They were halfway there, getting towards the tip of the peninsula on which the town was located. Harris was driving, with Catherine in the front passenger seat, and Jackson next to Ryan. They were in a red Ford Expedition that had 4 wheel drive. Harris had decided on this car, out of the two his parents had, because he didn’t know if a storm would hit, and wanted to be able to drive safely in the rain.

Ryan and Jackson had been having small conversations throughout their time in the car to pass the time. Jackson brought up the night at the bar. “I just really don’t want you to judge me.” he said.

Ryan nodded. “I totally get it. That guy was a pretty decent size. Not having training like me, it was perfectly reasonable for you to get the heck outta there.” he replied.

“I was kinda in trouble!” Catherine interjected. Jackson sighed and lowered his head.

“Now hold on.” Ryan said. “He couldn’t have taken that guy. Jackson here?” he said, pointing his thumb at Jackson. “He doesn’t know how to handle these situations, which isn’t exactly his fault. Had he tried to help you, he could easily have ended up with Paul in the ER. Can you really blame him for running, when it was his safety on the line?” he said. Catherine harrumphed. “Plus, he knew Paul would fight for you. He just didn’t want to get in the way.” Truthfully, Ryan only knew for certain that maybe half of this was true.

Catherine sighed. “Men.” she said. Harris kept his eyes on the road.

Jackson and Ryan continued having small conversations, occasionally looking around to see what little there was to see out here. Then, he looked into the mirror. “Hey, Harris,” he said. “Has the truck been behind us since we left?” he asked.

Harris looked, then gave a dismissing wave. “He’s probably just going the same route as us.” Ryan half-heartedly took his word for it.

“I’ve had this feeling lots of times... and always been wrong.” he concluded. He shivered slightly. “I really need to deal with my paranoia.” he decided.

The truck sped up and passed them. This further made Ryan uneasy, as well as Catherine and Harris. Jackson wasn’t paying attention. “Why would he pass us? We’re going like 120 kilometers an hour.” Catherine commented. Ryan was feeling uneasy, but dismissed it as his irrational fear of random events.Jackson was still not paying attention.

Suddenly, Ryan’s irrational fear wasn’t so irrational. The back door of the truck opened up revealing a man with an AKM rifle with a drum magazine. It could hold seventy-five 7.62x39mm rounds. Harris and Catherine froze in terror.

“Stop the car!” Ryan yelled.

Jackson became aware of the alarm now prevalent in the car. Harris was too stunned to hear. The man in the back of the car chambered the first round and began to take aim at their car. Unbuckling his seat belt, Ryan dove forward and placed a hand aggressively on the shoulders of Catherine and Harris.

“GET DOWN!”

Snapped out of their stupors, Harris and Catherine sank in their seat with the seat belts still on. Ryan dropped into the area between the front and back seats and looked up at Jackson.

The bullets began to fly. Ryan covered his head to avoid taking sharp debris to the eye. He could feel the stuffing of the seats above him raining down on him, the plastic of the seatback following close behind. Jackson’s legs were kicking violently at Ryan, who only avoided a concussion because his arms were already there. The car swerved in several directions as Harris lost control and tried to regain it. Ryan was thrown to and fro at the base of the seat. He smelled hot lead. And blood.

The car swerved way off road, to the left, and must have hit a ditch. Losing all even footing, the car struggled to stay even. It failed; while it swerved, it turned too much, too fast, and flipped. Ryan gripped the seat next to him as the car rolled on its side. It took all his arm strength to stay in place. Working out so much had finally had real rewards.

The car stopped, and Ryan could only hear a high pitched sound, like a TV as it turned on. He pulled himself up to get his bearings. In the background, shouts could be heard.

As he tried to pull himself up, he put his hand on Jackson’s knee. Realizing that Jackson was still in the car, he looked up to ask if he was alright.

What he got was a confirmation of just the opposite. There were numerous holes in Jackson’s shirt, with blood pouring out of each one. Jackson’s arms were bent in ways that didn’t seem humanly possible; his left elbow was backwards, with broken glass littering his forearm, which stuck out of the window. Whether or not there was still a hand couldn’t be seen. He had been shot in the neck, leaving a big hole in his throat like he'd had a Tracheotomy. The biggest wound was to his head; he only looked like he had maybe half of it left. A round had gone through his jaw, breaking it in half. Both halves hung loosely from his destroyed head. Another round had gone through just beneath his left eye, removing the eye and destroying the bones around it. His skin hung loose in a similar manner to Paul’s.

Being too shocked to fully grasp the gravity of all this, Ryan could only turn to look into the front seats. Harris was moving about, trying to get free of his seatbelt, but the airbag was having none of that.

“You okay?” Ryan asked with a raspy voice.

“Do I fucking look okay?” he responded. As the airbag receded, Ryan noticed a small piece of glass stuck in his friends shoulder. A minor wound.

He turned to Catherine, who was not moving. “Catherine?” he asked. She stirred. “Catherine!?” She moaned and turned to face Harris.

“What happened?” she asked.

Harris didn’t answer, as he was fidgeting with the airbag. “We got attacked. God knows why; we can only hope... ugh, that they don’t check the car.” As he said this, the shouts in the background came closer. Ryan cursed himself. He got up to look out the broken window by his seat and was greeted by a man pointing a rifle in his face.

“Make any sudden moves, and you die.” the man said with a heavy Aussie accent. Ryan raised his hands. “Out.” he ordered. Ryan obeyed. Two other men were doing the same with Harris and Catherine, while another looked at Jackson. “This one’s fried, mates.” he said, also Australian. A series of “meh”s followed. The men took the kids to the road where their truck was parked.

The back door opened, and another man came out. He was clearly not Australian; his skin was much darker. “Greetings.” he said. He had a distinctly Indian accent. The kids simply looked at him. “Good job, men.” he said to his men. “They will be worth a good sum. And the dead one will serve as a message to the world. Haqqani will get its demands, or we will continue to instill fear into the hearts of the people of the world.

“Haqqani?” Ryan thought. “Where have I heard that...” The men took the three remaining kids and threw them into the back of the truck. Their leader came forward.

“We are not in the business of keeping prisoners.” he said. Catherine got teary eyed. “We will be handing you off to our associate groups. Why am I telling you this? I bet you’re wondering.” he said.

“Haqqani... Haqqani...” Ryan continued to press his memories for details.

“You cannot possibly hope to get away. That is why.” he said. With that, he closed the doors, leaving them with one armed guard toward the front. A door opened then slammed in the front of the large vehicle.

He remembered. He turned to the guard. “What are you doing out here? The Haqqani network is only in Afghanistan and Pakistan...” he said, trailing off. The guard laughed. He leaned toward Ryan.

“They’re expanding. I’m just here for the money.” Typical mercenary. Doesn’t matter who he has to hurt and kill, as long as he’s paid, he doesn’t care. Bastard.

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Luna watched all the events unfold with her jaw hanging all the way down. “What has just occurred?!?” she yelled out. The one called Jackson had been brutally murdered and the kids were being taken by the men who did it. Remembering Jackson’s body, she felt queasy. Standing up to move away, she was too slow, and vomited into the pool.

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Ryan’s head was hanging down, as were those of his friends. The guard was looking away. Suddenly, Ryan heard a splash. He looked up. One of his friends couldn’t seem to stomach what had just happened to them.

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After recovering, Luna looked back into the pool, hoping her view would not be obstructed. Instead, her view was perfectly clear; there was vomit on the floor of the car. “That’s it!” she yelled. All she would have to do to contact the beings of this world was to project her magic INTO the pool. Then she thought about this for a moment. “He will certainly not be answering any of my questions now.” she thought, still nauseous. She reconsidered her priorities. “But I could... yes! I can help him!” she exclaimed into her mind. Though she had some trepidations about entering this world, even if just as a apparition. “If he is still in this situation by the end of the night, I will intervene... somehow.” she concluded.

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The three kids were keeping their heads down. Any time one of them looked up, they would find themselves looking down the barrel of a rifle. “Ch’you looking at?” their guard would say. They would not respond, except by looking back down at the floor.

“That guy was clearly Indian...” Ryan thought. He turned to face the guard. “I have a question...” he asked. The guard looked up mildly irritated, but otherwise didn’t move. “Why is an Indian guy with Haqqani?” he asked. The guard sighed loudly and shifted.

“If there’s one thing you should know about the world,” he started. “it’s that race and religion aren’t always going together the way people think. Not like I know.” Ryan looked back down.

“Well, that wasn’t the response I was expecting.” He silently reprimanded himself for allowing such thoughts into his mind. He prided himself on not being prejudice or bias; he would have to think more carefully about people in the future.

The car ride had lasted for three hours, meaning it should be around 6:00. None of the kids knew where they were being taken. They were anxious about their coming location. Harris looked up at the guard. Before speaking, he waited for the guard to look at him.

“Do you want, mate?” he asked.

Harris responded, “Where are we going?” The guard didn’t answer. Harris looked at him expectantly.

“Do I care about where you’re going?” That was answer enough; these guys were not in the need-to-know group. “All I know is that you’ll be taken to a dock. I don’t know anything further. Now, stop. Bothering. Me.” he said. Harris looked back down.

Ryan closed his eyes. “We’re leaving Australia...”

He looked over to Catherine, who had been immobile for the whole ride. Not one movement, not one sound. She just sat there. Unfortunately, Ryan couldn’t check on her, as she was too far away. To get up meant to be shot.

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They arrived at the dock of which the guard spoke of at around 8:00. The sky was dark, as it was winter. They were all lucky that it happened to be warm this time of year, and more so this year, or they would all be freezing. Of course, if it was cold, this wouldn’t have happened. The guard stood up.

“Stand.” he ordered. The kids all stood up. There was muffled conversation outside the car. “Line up at the door.” They did so. The voices were just outside the door. It opened. “Out.”, they were ordered. They removed themselves from the large vehicle.

Off toward the water, there were two groups of men. One was the group that kidnapped the kids; the other was presumably Haqqani. The men who captured them were yelling while the Haqqani men simply stood calmly. They were shouting in some language that wasn’t English. The man he was yelling at turned to his men and was about to speak.

The three kids were paraded forward, Catherine in the front. The Haqqani man who was being yelled at looked over and smiled. With a smug grin, he stepped toward his new captives. He walked right up to Catherine and inspected her. He moved her jaw, her hair, he spun her around, and patted her down. He was sure to check every orifice he could find; EVERY orifice. Saying something in a satisfactory tone, he moved onto Harris. Before he started, Harris backed away.

“Screw you.” he said.

His response was met with close to a dozen rifles being pointed at him. Noticing this, he stepped back forward with a frustrated grunt. The man did the same inspection to him as he did to Catherine, minus the pat down. Harris muttered under his breath the whole time. Then, it was Ryan’s turn. He refused to flinch. The man said something to him.

“You display no fear, yet no resistance.” he commented. Ryan looked into his eyes. “I do not like it.” he said in a dark tone. Ryan grunted. The man did his check on Ryan. At the end, he gave a satisfactory nod. “You could make a good prisoner.”

Ryan squinted and spat at the man. “Kill yourself.” he ordered. The man wiped his face. Without any warning, a pistol butt whacked him on the side of the head.

“You will do as I say. Understand?” he said. Ryan nodded. The man leaned in.

“Yes. I will do as you say.” The man looked at him with sick amusement.

“Excellent! Load them on with the others.” he said.

As the kids were marched to a boat at one end of the dock, Ryan looked back. The yelling match was becoming very hostile. Then, without a word, the Haqqani men opened fire on the mercenaries. They didn’t even have time to react; in a flash of light and noise, they were all gone.

“Poor bastards.” Ryan thought. Even if they were such bad men, it was terrible to die, or see someone die, without any hint of warning.

With that, the kids were stuffed onto the boat with nearly a dozen strangers, and when their captors boarded, the boat drove off into the night.

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Luna looked at the clock, which read 8:30. “Oh shoot!” she exclaimed. “The wedding party!” Running as fast as she could, she exited her sanctum and flew off her balcony. From the air, she spotted her sister and the element bearers. She landed down next to them.

“Hello, everypony.” she said. “Did I miss anything?”