Fanfic...or, at least, what I've got so far. ^^
The hobbits lept the fence, pounding down the lane towards the ferry, the shrill scream of the Rider and the heavy hoofbeats ringing in their ears.
Merry and Pippin reached the ferry first, Sam right on their heels. "The rope, Sam!" Merry cried, he and Pip both grabbing poles to push. Sam scrabbled at the rope, freeing the ferry from the dock. Just as they began to drift away from the shore, Frodo came racing down the lane, the Rider close behind.
"Mister Frodo!"
"Jump!"
"Hurry!"
Frodo's bare feet hit the dock, and he lept, landing solidly on the ferry and collapsed at the feet of his friends. As one, they turned their faces toward the Rider as its horse reached the dock and skidded to a halt. The Rider screamed...
A mile or so away, a helicopter hummed noiselessly through the air. Inside this piece of technology that shouldn't have been seen in these skies in the first place, sat three teenagers. The shortest sat pouring over a thick book, running her finger along the page. Then the digit came to a halt, with a sharp intake of breath. "Oh dear..." Looking up at her friends, she added, "I think I've found them..."
...and jumped. It landed on the ferry and drew its sword. "Into the water!" Frodo yelled. Twin splashes told him Merry and Pippin were one step ahead of him. He threw himself off the ferry and into the river, kicking away and struggling out of the pack that threatened to drag him down.
He surfaced a few yards away, just in time to see that Sam was still on the ferry before the Rider struck.
"Sam!"
D'nea raced down the lane, eyes fixed on the ferry. The Riders' sword had gone through Sam's shoulder, and the sudden arrival of Azzie distracted the wraith long enough for him to topple into the water.
She reached the edge of the dock and dove in. Immediately, three panicked voices began screaming in her head.
'Where's Pippin!?'
'Sam!'
'M'bag's caught! I can't get up!'
Ignoring them for the moment, she focused on the single, pain-filled and bewildered one. 'Can't...breathe...hurts...'
~HE IS THERE~ gurgled the River. A dim figure floated into her field of vision.
~Thank you~ D'nea murmured, swimming after the wounded hobbit.
~IT IS MY PLEASURE, WATCHER~
She stuck out a hand and grabbed Sam's bag, pulling him closer. Looping an arm around his waist, she called, silently.
~Could you bring us to the dock?~
~YOU ARE DOWNSTREAM~
~You're right. Sorry. Stupid of me~
Dragging the limp hobbit upward to the surface, the water mage struck out for the dock. "Ae'ros! Give me a hand!"
The third Chaos Lord reached down and hauled Sam onto the dock, as D'nea dove again.
Pippin's voice had gotten weaker, but she could easily see him struggling with his pack near the bottom.
Reaching him, D'nea snagged a flailing hand and tried to pull him up. The hobbit's response was a muffled, bubbly yell.
~HE IS STUCK~
~Oh. Right~ Striking out with one hand, she grabbed his pack. Like she'd hoped, it was partically cotton. *Go to the surface, or I'll rot you*
*we're stuck!*
*Obviously. Unstick. Now* She backed her words with the threat of a watery grave, and disintegration.
Pippin shot to the surface like a bullet.
~IMPRESSIVE~ chuckled the River.
~Thanks~
She surfaced next to Pippin, who was floundering under his super-buoyed pack, and gave him a nudge toward the dock. Frodo was already there, but Merry had been frantically searching for his friend. When he saw D'nea navigating the spluttering Took toward the dock, he swamp after. They crawled onto the dock, and collapsed.
Merry, climbing up onto the dock, finally got a good look at their rescuers. The girl who'd saved Sam and Pippin was sitting nearby, soaked to the skin, and apparently had begun arguing with another rescuer the moment she'd gotten onto the dock.
"You were down for a long time! Of course I'm going to worry!"
"Ae'ros, I'm a water mage. Its impossible for me to drown."
Ae'ros, a tall boy who was bristling with knives, scowled down at the girl. "That's not what I meant. What if They'd deployed something to make sure they," he nodded at Merry and the rest, "didn't escape into the water?"
"Then I would have noticed and got your help. Why are you nagging at me? Azzie fought a wraith."
"Speaking of Azzie," another voice piped up, "She could use some help, here."
"Azzie", the blond girl who'd appeared out of nowhere and fought the Rider, was kneeling at the side of the unconscious Sam. A silver-green glow surrounded her hands and Sam's shoulder.
The soaking girl scrambled to her feet and over to her friend. "Sorry. Distracted."
"We have the attention span of gnats, you realize that, don't you?" Azzie looked at the other girl.
"Too much stuff happening, usually stuff we need to fix. Of course we have short attention spans."
"That makes no sense, D'nea."
"Hello-o, we're Chaos Lords. We don't make sense."
"Point."
Sam moaned softly, and the two girls winced at each other. "Oops."
Frodo opened his mouth to demand what, exactly, they meant by "Oops", but the two ignored him, suddenly serious.
"I'm rebuilding," Azzie murmured, "But I think there might be poison, and there's certainly infection."
The other girl, now identified as "D'nea" nodded. "I'll take that. You finish."
"What about me?" Ae'ros demanded.
"You introduce us." With that, they lapsed into silence, a copper-and-purple glow from D'nea joining Azzie's silver-green glow. Ae'ros glared at them, and didn't look as though he was planning on following orders for trivial things like introductions.
Merry slipped over to Frodo, who was standing near by, watching Sam anxiously. "What do you make of them, Frodo?" he asked, softly.
Frodo shook his head. "I don't know. I don't think they are as harmless as they appear, but neither do they seem to mean us any harm." He glanced at Ae'ros, and added, louder, "We owe them our lives, in any case."
Ae'rose started, as if suddenly remembering they were there. "Don't mention it. Its what we do."
"Who are you, exactly?" Merry inquired.
"Mages." Ae'ros shrugged. "LoCs. The people who run around trying to keep Existence in existence."
This earned him bewildered stares. He sighed. "I'm Ae'ros, that's Azaelia (we call her Azzie or Az) and D'nea."
"The pointy object wielding pacifists," D'nea murmured, without opening her eyes.
"Concentrate," Azzie commanded.
"Concentrating," D'nea replied.
"We're here," Ae'ros continued as if there'd been no interruption, "to help you, Frodo, in any way we possibly can."
"How do you know who I am?"
"We know a lot of things. Not everything. But we do know who you are. And what you carry that the Riders are so keen to get."
Frodo put one hand to the pocket that held the Ring, and opened his mouth to reply, but he was cut short by a yelp from D'nea.
Copper sparks were crackling around her fingers, and her face was twisted in a grimace of pain and determination. "Ow..." She gritted through clenched teeth. "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow,..."
Azzie growled something in a language the hobbits didn't know, but it didn't sound particularly encouraging.
"What's wrong?" Ae'ros asked, over the startled exclaimations from the hobbits.
They didn't respond. The glow from D'nea's hands went out, and she flopped over backwards onto the dock and groaned something that sounded like "Nnnghrgk."
"D'nea?" Ae'ros inquired.
"Mmh?"
"You alright?"
She lifted one hand, curled it into a fist, extended forefinger and thumb, pointed it at her head and said simply "Bang."
"Ah."
"I'm fine, thanks for asking," Azzie grumbled. Ae'ros opened his mouth to protest, looking hurt, but she cut him off. "Just come over here and hug me." This appeared to be an order he would follow. The silver-green glow faded and Sam stirred. His friends were immediately crowding around him.
Sam blinked, turning a bewildered expression to Frodo. "What happened, Mister Frodo? The last I remember, we were on the ferry and..." He faltered, and put his hand to his shoulder.
"There might be a scar," D'nea commented, sitting up slowly. "But it shouldn't hurt. Not much, at least. For long." SHe made a face and put a hand to her stomach. "I think I'm gonna be sick."
"It's just the poison getting out of your system," Azzie murmured, voice slightly muffled by Ae'ros's shoulder.
"Nooo, really?" D'nea staggered to her feet.
"Good thing its weakened by the transfer." Azzie continued, ignoring her.
"Shut. Up." D'nea broke into a run, and disappeared into the darkness. Her prediction, it seemed, was coming true.
"Who are these people, Mister Frodo?" Sam, who'd been unconcious for the introductions, inquired softly.
"Well...we're not exactly sure what they are," Frodo admitted.
"But they told us they're names," Pippin added. "Those two are Azzie and Ae'ros. The other is D'nea."
"And they seem to know an awful lot about Frodo," Merry added.
They glanced up as D'nea came back in to view, looking slightly pale and annoyed. As much as they knew they should be suspicious and wary of these three, not even Sam could picture them working for the Enemy.
"If you two lovebirds are quite finished, we really should get to the other shore before any more Riders come. At the moment, I think all I could do would be display my dinner for their viewing pleasure." D'nea staggered back onto the dock and glared at Ae'ros and Azzie.
Yes...I'm evil...deal with it...there's more. Current Mood: 
contemplative 
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