Ethan and Ehlana:
Happy 3rd Anniversary, Joshua and Sally Parker!
***RESTRICTED ACCESS UPDATE***
We have more of the details from the confrontation that Cassie and Michael had with the Dark Magi Master from China – and they ended up fighting two of them – Shen Hu and his nineteen-year-old son, Shen Li! From our past experiences with the Hathornes, you probably won’t be surprised to find out that some parts of that scene were strange and surreal, and in this case, Cassie and Michael had to deal with a father that was surprisingly polite for being evil while the son was crude and obnoxious – especially toward Cassie. Michael took offense to that – as we did; so we won’t feel bad that he kicked the guy’s butt with a bit of help from Cassie!
The actual fight that they had is likely what most future readers will be most-interested in; so let’s get to that part of the story. After some chat time and a first round of insults from Shen Li, his father offered him the opportunity to fight and defeat Cassie, but when he opened with a lewd offer for Cassie’s surrender; Michael stepped up first; side-stepped a fireball from Shen Li; and then knocked him out with three Magi-powered strikes – a punch and two kicks – that put him on the ground and left him unconscious for a while. Shen Hu began his attacks on Cassie and Michael soon after that, and we should mention that they never suspected that Michael is a Magi Master too. That part of their defense worked perfectly as we’d planned and hoped, and while it might seem anti-climactic; they defeated Shen Hu the same way that Mom and Cassie defeated Corwyn Hathorne with help from Dad, Aunt Leanne, and Uncle Adam. This time, Shen Hu recognized the danger sooner, but still couldn’t disconnect from Cassie and Michael’s counter. He also had to deal with Shen Li after he woke and chose to attempt to kill his own father – taking advantage of the fight and his weakened condition.
While Shen Hu diverted some of his attention and was about to defend himself from Shen Li – and counter-attack; Cassie was faster. She locked on to Shen Li’s attack and began to drain him too; diverted the extra attack from Shen Hu; and then Michael helped her to drain the Magi power from both men. Shen Li was defeated first because he couldn’t even figure out how to fight against what was happening to him and then Shen Hu was eventually left powerless too. Don’t try that at home; since we can assure you that while that might sound easy in the recap; the power needed to make what Cassie and Michael did was astonishing! While the battle was over; it also wasn’t. Their little chat resumed, but the real story behind that was that Cassie and Michael gained access to the Shen family computer systems; collected some information right away – including a digital copy of their family archives; and Cassie apparently read one of the books that was a family history from the start of the Qin dynasty. While there was sure to be a family bias for those stories; it does appear that the Shen family has had influence over China’s leaders for millennia. Shen Li tried one last time to attack Cassie – with a sword; Cassie and Michael worked together to best him again; and Mom still won’t let us try to break priceless, ancient weapons; so we do not think that it is fair that Cassie is allowed to do awesome things like that! ;^)
That’s pretty much the end of the highlights for that story, but we have a couple of thoughts on what we know so far. First up, we need to take a look at future plans for Dark Magi confrontations when it comes to what we allow them to know about Cassie. In this case, it probably wouldn’t have worked to try and modify memories for Shen Hu and his son because Cassie and Michael were seen by quite a few people, but as they move on with other battles; we don’t want them to attract so much attention that retaliations are brought home to Witch Falls. That wouldn’t really be possible for Shen Hu or Shen Li, but there is a younger daughter-sister who could be a future threat – if she is told about Cassie. Dark Magi like to keep secrets – especially from other powerful Magi, so that might not happen; and that’s also one of the reasons for why we hope that our plans won’t be discovered by most of the Dark Magi families anytime soon.
It is awesome that Cassie and Michael have been so successful with their first battle; so we’re feeling pretty good about our plans right now too. That’s also all we have for this story today; so let’s get back to our news of the day!
***END OF RESTRICTED UPDATE***
Thanks to Naomi and Aiden, we had extra fun with our Tai Chi by the river workout; the breakfast highlight was our vid-chat with Cassie and Michael; and then Ehlana and I eventually moved on to a morning at the lab or archives. We met up with our best friends by lunchtime; Mom had a picnic lunch for us to take along for our bike ride; and we hit the trails around town and out part of the way to Quarry Lake. We didn’t try to go all the way out there because we had our ball practices and the Pizzeria pizza picnic dinner at the park; so we didn’t want to push the biking very hard. We also made sure that we had time for a long swim before the baseball fun; and we had fun with that too.
That picnic dinner and the practices were a highlight of our day, but after staying up late last night; we were ready to go home and have an early night – without any sleepovers. Since getting home, we only did a short Magi lesson with Mom; bath or Jacuzzi time was required; and now we’re pretty much ready to get some sleep. While we do that, Cassie and Michael are in-transit from Xi’an to Yinchuan – another high-speed train ride. Cassie and Michael are excited about the next stage of their trip – and that is partly because it is a bit cooler in Yinchuan – though that is relative; and still close to our own normal summertime highs and lows. They’ll be having meetings and a site visit in the afternoon too; so they are going to be having another long day.
We’re good with sleeping through a lot of that, and don’t have anything else to add for this report; so we’re out of here!
Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!
