Mist of Shadows
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Wrong Place, Right Time Part 3
🕑 Added 2025-07-22 06:54:03 +0000 UTC"Wingardium Leviosa," Blackberry chanted as she focused on the feather sitting on the table and waved the spare wand that Lily had let her borrow. "So much for learning the local style of magic."
"Sorry," Lily offered. "You're saying the incantation correctly and you're waving the wand better than most wizards, you might be right."
"It was worth a try," Blackberry replied as she glanced at where Albus was hovering a foot off the ground, having cast the Flight spell that he'd learned by reading one of the books from her chest of random books. "At least Albus managed to learn the Flight spell."
"It's certainly interesting," Albus replied as he floated a foot to his left. "I'm tempted to float into the great hall in the morning and see if anyone calls me on it."
James laughed. "What are you going to tell them if they do?"
"I'll tell them that magic can be found in the strangest places and that a trip to the library might do them good," Albus replied innocently.
"I think that’d top everything we did in school," Sirius admitted, fairly sure that he'd have most of the school in the library over the next couple of weeks.
Albus smiled, rather proud of his 'prank' since all of the students would benefit from some independent research.
Peter pulled his attention off the translucent crystal chest sitting in the middle of the livingroom that the dragon had pulled out of her bag. "I'm surprised that you're not jealous, you can't learn our magic and your magic works for us."
Blackberry twisted her neck around so that she could see Peter. "The chest is an artifact, they generally treat laws of reality as mere suggestions. I'd actually be more surprised if you couldn't learn the spells in it."
Lily glanced at the stack of old leather bound tomes stacked on the coffee table. "Are you sure you're okay with leaving the books?"
"It's fine, the chest will just create more tomorrow and I've already copied everything so I can feed them to my spellbook," Blackberry assured her as she picked up the empty crystal chest and put it in her bag of holding.
"Does it worry anyone else that her spellbook eats books?" Peter asked warily, finding the entire situation strange.
"Not in the least," Lily replied, wishing she had a copy of a book that could act as a private and portable library. "Are you still planning on using an illusion to sneak into Diagon Alley?"
"I wouldn't mind grabbing a spare wand and a couple of old bludgers to study but I'm not sure that's worth the trip considering I'd have to deal with the goblins to exchange my gold for fake gold," Blackberry admitted, finding the entire idea extremely distasteful and knowing that she'd probably end up starting a fight with the goblins.
"I've heard the rest of the world uses paper money," Albus offered, well aware of the mundane side of things.
Blackberry stared at the old wizard, wondering if he was trying to pull some type of prank. "Do they have any spells that prevent us from copying them?" she asked, trying to figure out why anyone would take paper as currency. 'Maybe they can be exchanged for gold?'
"No, just a lot of rules and regulations," Albus admitted. "Of course, if you're caught copying money, you'll end up in prison for it."
"That's fair," Blackberry admitted, torn between the idea of taking advantage of their stupidity while she was in the neighborhood and going home so that she could see her siblings and tell her parents all about her trip. "As much as I'd love to compare prices and pick up some trinkets, I should be getting home."
"Are you ever coming back?" Lily asked, not wanting to lose the chance to talk with a talking dragon.
"Absolutely, I'll be back when I've got more time and supplies," Blackberry assured her, looking forward to exploring the new world when she could after she'd had a chance to do some research on their type of magic so that she could figure out how to duplicate it. "I still haven't given up on figuring out how to duplicate some of your spells."
"I'll write up my observations," Lily promised.
"Same," Sirius agreed, looking forward to seeing what type of spells he could learn from the books.
"Thank you." Blackberry cast her gate spell, causing a black and purple disk to appear under Voldemort's statue, causing it to fall through. "Stay safe!" she told them then jumped through the portal, hoping she'd have better luck than the last two times she'd tried it.
0o0o0
"I have the power to save the one you love, you must choose," Palpatine told Anakin while he blasted Mace Windu's lightsaber with lightning, trying to get Anakin to help him so that he could turn him.
"Don't listen to him Anakin," Mace replied, his voice strained with the stress of trying to keep the sith's lightning flowing into his lightsaber rather than into his body.
"You have to help-" whatever else Palpatine was going to say was cut off as a table sized black and purple disk of crackling energy appeared above the sith and a stone statue of a near human man wearing robes fell out of the portal and crushed his legs.
Anakin watched in disbelief as the statue tumbled out of the broken window as some type of silver dragon-like creature dropped out of the disk before it vanished.
"Sorry about the statue…" Blackberry trailed off when she noticed the aura of the old man that was huddled against the wall was blacker than some of the liches she'd run into over the years.
Palpatine lashed out with force lightning, catching the dragon and tossing her back several steps. "Die!" he screamed, furious about the statue landing on his legs and the fact that the force hadn't warned him.
Blackberry screamed in rage and pain as she charged the twisted magic user that had actually managed to hurt her with magic, something that hadn't happened in years.
Anakin jumped back as the force warned him that standing in his current location would be a really bad idea.
Palpatine tossed the dragon with a force push, not wanting it to close the distance.
Mace tossed himself away from the chancellor and the window as the dragon opened its mouth and unleashed a torrent of frost that washed over the chancellor, freezing the man solid like he'd been dropped into a tank of liquid carbonite.
Blackberry finished freezing the evil bastard then pounced on him, quickly ripping him apart.
"What are you?!" Anakin asked the strange creature, not lowering his lightsaber as the creature was obviously extremely dangerous and he felt strangely unbalanced, like he'd been set free and lost something at the same time that he hadn't known he had.
"I'm a dragon," Blackberry replied, not taking her eyes off the frozen chunks of the dark mage in case he started regenerating. "Is he going to start regenerating and do we have to worry about him coming back from the dead?" she asked, figuring that was always a concern with evil bastards.
Mace glanced at Skywalker then focused on the dragon when he realized that Skywalker wasn't going to attack it. "Most sith can't regenerate from being frozen and torn apart."
"Sith?" Blackberry asked as she turned her attention to the glowing swords the robed figures were holding, curious how they worked since they weren't radiating any magic.
"You've never heard of sith?" Anakin asked, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that his mentor was a sith. "What about Jedi?"
"Sorry, I'm not from around here," Blackberry admitted as she looked out the window, hoping that Voldemort's statue hadn't hurt anyone when it landed.
"The sith are a cult of force users that use the dark side of the force," Mace explained, feeling a bit uncomfortable since he couldn't sense her thoughts or emotions.
"Force? Is that like magic?" Blackberry asked as she studied the strange city she could see out of the window, curious how the flying carriages worked. 'Neat!' she thought, a bit distracted with her thoughts on their 'magic' and by the alien city she could see.
"The force is an energy field that surrounds everything, the darkside is fueled by negative emotions and tends to drive the user insane," Mace explained. "How did you get here?"
'Emotions? Psionics would certainly explain why the lightning cut through my spell resistance,' Blackberry mused. 'Might be worth casting a spell to detect psionics when they don't have a couple of glowing swords pointed at me. They're probably fire damage but they might have laced them with the same energy as the lightning.'
"How did you get here?" Anakin asked, having realized that the dragon was distracted.
Blackberry turned to look at the man wearing black robes. "My gate spell has been malfunctioning, I keep getting dropped into trouble."
"Malfunctioning?" Mace asked, not sure what to think about the dragon since she didn't feel like a force user.
"It should have taken me home but I keep ending up on different worlds or in different dimensions, it's getting a little annoying," Blackberry admitted. "I should probably fly down and check to see if the statue landed on anyone or if I have to heal people."
"Hopefully no one died," Anakin offered.
"Yeah, I'm running out of diamond dust," Blackberry replied absently as she looked over the edge at the ground where the statue had shattered a couple of hundred feet below, wondering if it was better to just jump and use Feather Fall or if flying down was better.
"Diamond dust?" Anakin asked.
"It's the material component for Raise Dead," Blackberry replied as she turned her attention back to Mace. "Do you want me to heal you? That lightning was annoying," she complained, ignoring the fact that her regeneration had already healed the damage he'd managed to cause.
"I blocked most of it…" Mace trailed off as the dragon gestured and he went from in pain because of a couple of points on his arms and shoulders where the lightning had splashed him to feeling perfectly fine before he could dismiss her help.
"Done," Blackberry replied as she looked at Anakin. "Do you need healing?"
"I'm fine, unless you can regrow limbs," Anakin replied, unwilling to mention the strange feeling of loss when the chancellor died, since the council was already going to grill him about the fact that he hadn't jumped right into the fight to help Mace.
"Sure," Blackberry replied cheerfully and cast Heal on Anakin flooding him with positive energy, causing all of the lingering taint from the dark side, mental trauma from the war and his various mostly healed injuries to vanish along with the shattered bond the chancellor had created when Anakin was still a padawan.
'If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed it,' Mace mused as he felt Anakin truly relax for the first time in years, dropping the weight he was carrying.
"Do you do house calls?" Anakin asked, surprised by how good he was feeling after experiencing her unusual force technique.
"Yeah, I'll be back in ten, I have questions," Blackberry told him, curious about the man that had tried to kill her with lightning. She quickly cast Regeneration on Anakin and jumped out the window while he was distracted. "Wee!"
"Shit!" Anakin cursed when the metal and plastic were pushed out of his arm, causing his artificial hand to fall. He stared in disbelief as his missing limb regenerated before his eyes, already half healed by the time his artificial hand hit the ground. He watched his hand finish regenerating then turned to look at Mace. "What are we supposed to tell the senate?"
Mace considered the question for a few seconds, fairly sure no one would believe him. "The truth, a dragon fell out of a portal and killed the Chancellor before we could save him. There should be recordings of its presence down below and I don't see a reason to complicate things until we've had a chance to deal with the corruption in the senate."
"I'm strangely fine with that," Anakin admitted as he wiggled his newly regenerated fingers, fairly sure the dragon wouldn't care. "I know I shouldn't be and that we have rules for a reason but I don't think we'd get a fair trial."
"I’m of the same opinion," Mace admitted, more than happy to let the Republic believe that someone killed the chancellor while they eroded his support and dealt with the worst of the senators.
“I’m pretty sure Senator Amandala would support us,” he offered.
“Members of the senate often act in ways that we don’t expect and while she has been supportive, I’m not sure what the jedi could offer her that would sway her to our side,” Mace said.
“Oh… I can think of a few things,” Anakin admitted, embarrassed. “Did I ever tell you the story of Anakin the Unwise?”
0o0o0
Blackberry landed on the gravel walkway and glanced around, trying to figure out if anyone had gotten injured by the statue. 'I think there would be more screaming or at least people standing around and talking if the statue had hit someone or anything important. Now I just have to figure out where it went.'
She glanced around and froze for a second when she noticed that one of the chunks of stone in the gravel walkway looked like part of an ear. She smiled slightly when she spotted another small rock that looked like a toe twenty feet away from the ear shaped rock. 'That shattered more than I was expecting. Then again, this is the first time I've seen a statue fall from a couple of hundred feet and hit the ground.'
She was just about to leave when she spotted a strange cylinder in a bush that looked a lot like the hilts of the flaming swords the people with robes had. She walked over and extracted the cylinder from the bush and looked it over. 'It's not particularly heavy and it hit the bush, that probably kept it from shattering.'
She cast Make Whole on the device to make sure there wasn't any internal damage then cast Detect Psionics, wanting to make sure it wasn't a psionic death trap. She grinned when she realized that the device had a faint signature. "Doesn't look dangerous…" she trailed off as she glanced up and realized that everything in the area was covered in a dark haze that made her scales crawl.
'What the hell?' she asked herself as she glanced around, trying to figure out if she could find the cause of the haze. "I should probably bring that up with the space wizards," she muttered as she pointed the device away from her and pushed the button on the hilt, causing a bright red blade to emerge from the end of it.
She carefully swung the blade around a couple of times to test the weight and feel. "You'd need to adjust a couple of moves because the blade doesn't weigh anything and you'd probably lose an arm or a leg if you slipped but glowing blades of light are sort of neat."
She used her left hand to cast her custom Detect Threat spell on the lightsaber that let her know what type of damage items or spells caused, wanting to know if it could actually hurt her. 'Okay, it's just fire and lightning damage, nothing to worry about,' she mused, happy that it wasn't like the lightning the old man had hit her with. She spent a minute going through a couple of sword forms that she'd picked up then turned the blade off and slipped the blade into her bag.
'I'm going to have to change the color,' she mused as she jumped into the air and headed for the broken window, wanting to ask the strangers more about the 'Force' and check to see if they were psions since her Detect Magic spell wasn't picking anything up.
She frowned slightly when she got high enough that she could see a difference in the haze that covered everything, letting her see that the haze was seeping out of vents in the ground. 'Did they build over a massive grave site? Or an ancient summoning ritual? The summoning ritual is probably less reasonable considering that would probably set off my magic detection,' she mused as she flew up to the shattered window, landing on the ledge.
"You're back," Anakin offered as the dragon folded her wings and walked over, not sure what else to say.
"Like I said, I have questions," Blackberry replied as she studied the two psionists, trying to get a sense of how powerful they were since they didn't seem to have a lot of psionic energy stored in their minds or bodies. "Did you know that your city is covered by a dark psionic haze?"
"You can sense it?" Mace asked.
"Only when I cast a spell," Blackberry replied. "Do you have a list of psionic powers that your style of psionist can learn?"
"We generally don't make a habit of spreading that information but I'm sure we could share some details if you're willing to come back to the Jedi Temple with us and share some stories about your traditions," Mace offered, knowing the council would want to talk with her since she was obviously some type of force user he'd never heard of.
"I've got time," Blackberry replied, figuring she might as well hang around a bit to see if it was worth selling the location to some of the psionicists in her world.
"Follow me and try not to say anything about the battle until we get to the temple," Mace told her as he headed for the door, wanting to leave before anyone realized they'd killed the chancellor.
0o0o0
"Seen your species before, I have not," Yoda said thoughtfully as he studied the small silver dragon.
'Is my translation spell glitching or is he swapping the order intentionally?' Blackberry mused as she studied the small old figure that was wearing robes that was sitting in what looked like some type of meeting area. "I've seen a lot of new species today so I'm not surprised."
"What do you call your species?" Shaak Ti asked.
"Most people call us dragons or true dragons if you're feeling formal. Some purists would call me a mutt since I have some gold and white dragon mixed in but I'm basically a silver dragon since I can breathe a cone of frost and I'm immune to cold and most forms of acid which is the typical racial abilities of silver dragons," she explained. "There are a lot of different types of dragons where I'm from. What are you?"
"I'm a togruta, I'll give you some reading material later if you want," Shaak offered.
"That would be nice, I like learning new things," Blackberry replied, curious about the aliens.
"Mentioned a dark cloud to Windu, you did," Yoda said. "Tell us about the cloud, if you would?"
"It seems to be seeping out of the ground. I'm not an expert when it comes to psionic powers or effects but my Detect Psionics spell gives me some insight into their effects. The haze boosts negative emotions and might have worse effects."
"Wouldn't we have noticed?" Obi Wan asked.
"It's subtle, a push here, a nudge there, one wrong word at the end of a bad day and things get worse," Blackberry explained.
"Are you sure it wasn't coming from the chancellor's office?" Plo Koon asked.
Blackberry turned to look at the robed figure that was wearing a mask over his mouth or at least what she was assuming his mouth was since he wasn't human. "While the chancellor was certainly twisted and evil to the point where his aura was pitch black, his office wasn't any worse than the rest of the building. If I had to guess, the source is probably in the sewers, that seems to happen a lot."
"Forgotten by most, the old tunnels have been," Yoda mused, making a note to check the archives to see if he could find out what was causing it.
"What is the difference between a psionic power and a spell?" Obi Wan asked once it became apparent that Yoda wasn't going to ask a follow up question.
"Psions or psychics use techniques or powers that are powered by a pool of mental energy and have a couple of ways to pool their power while spells use mana or magical energy which usually regenerates with a good night's rest. Like I said, I'm not an expert when it comes to psychic powers, you have to have the talent and I don't," Blackberry explained.
"But you have the talent for magic?" Obi Wan asked.
"Just about everything that counts as a true dragon has a talent for magic unless you're a gem dragon, they have a talent for psionic power instead. I've even heard of people with a talent for both but you'd have to ask a specialist in my world," Blackberry admitted.
'They're probably just weaker talents,' Plo Koon mused, having run into a couple of strange groups of force sensitives over the years.
"How did you see the chancellor's aura?" Obi Wan asked.
"I walk around with a permanent detect evil spell, it generally gives me a heads up when I see someone that likes kicking small fluffy animals or is selfish to an unhealthy degree," Blackberry explained.
"What do you consider an unhealthy degree?" Mace asked.
"If you're willing to cause an innocent person or animal harm over what amounts to a rounding error for your current finances or if you're not willing to share when you have plenty and the person is reasonable and in actual need. It's not always that cut and dry but if someone shows up as evil to my spell, they're generally twisted enough that they should probably be in prison or dead."
"That sounds useful," Obi Wan agreed.
"It is but there are also things that can twist your aura so it's always good to remember that it's not perfect," Blackberry said.
"Trust in their power, too many people do," Yoda said thoughtfully. "Guilty of that, I am. Saw the chancellor as a sith, I did not."
"Everyone makes mistakes," Blackberry replied then yawned.
"Does your world have orders or groups that teach people to be sorcerers?" Obi Wan asked.
"Not really, the power is basically innate. Most of the training involves spell research and how to twist our magic in strange ways, like making our spells more intense or safer to use on people or how to create a five foot hole in a Fireball spell so that you don't roast your allies," Blackberry explained.
"Fireball?" Obi Wan asked.
"It basically creates a small ball of fire that rushes at your target area and explodes into a twenty foot radius ball of fire that is generally hot enough to turn the average person to ash unless you get unlucky," Blackberry explained, missing the look of unease on their faces.
"Does your order have a code of behavior?" Mace asked.
"In the school or like a knight's code?" Blackberry asked, not sure what they meant by a code.
"Like a knight's code," Mace replied.
"That generally depends on where you learn magic or at least where you learn to push your magic in interesting ways for sorcerers. Ishara is a country of magic users, we're pretty good at teaching people to be responsible or at least reminding them that if they cause enough trouble one of the elders will take the time to hunt them down and make sure they stop causing trouble. The dark elves are pretty good at reminding their people that being polite costs them nothing and that being impolite can cost you everything. Some of the knight orders have branches that deal with magic, but I couldn't tell you their rules and regulations."
"How many sorcerers does your world have?" Mace asked.
"I don't know. It's easier to lump all of the wizards, arcanists, witches and sorcerers together. Last I checked, Ishara has about thirty million citizens, they're all magic users of one type or another. The dark elves have at least fifty million citizens, at least a third of those are magic users and most of them are psychic. The rest of the elves probably have at least twenty million magic users of decent power, they live forever unless they're killed and they like magic. Outside of that, I couldn't tell you," Blackberry admitted, not sure of the numbers for the rest of the countries as they didn't really keep records.
"How do you have that many force users on one world?" Shaak Ti asked, shocked by the number.
Blackberry glanced at the red skinned woman, wondering how many times she'd have to explain that they weren't using the force before they believed her. "Magic runs in bloodlines and Ishara puts a lot of effort into training everyone to love magic and to excel at it."
"How many species do you have living on your world?" Plo Koon asked.
"Humans, elves, dark elves, gnomes, dragons, naga, nymphs, pixies…" Blackberry trailed off as she realized she'd be there all day trying to recall every species that lived on the world or had access to it because of portals. "Lets just go with lots. What can you tell me about lightsaber dueling?"
Yoda glanced around the council, unhappy about the vacant spots that they'd have to fill and well aware that his fellow council members were trying to wrap their heads around a single world having millions of force sensitives. "Find some duels, we can, a break we need," he suggested, knowing the council needed some time to ask Mace about the details of the chancellor's death and the dragon’s involvement.
"Neat!" Blackberry squealed, looking forward to watching a duel and getting some practice in if they let her.
0o0o0
