As the two suns rose the next morning, the Triad were bursting with excitement (even if their morose demeanor did not show it) as they got out of bed and got dressed for the day. Seref put on her spider bat choker which was basically all she ever wore, finding clothes to be pointless. Isobel put on her intricate grey lace top with its beautifully mundane choker, and Nyx put on her outfit that was the perfect combination of both of her sister’s outfits. With the three all dressed for the day, they each took a deep breath in unison and began their ominous March to their spell chamber to finish taking care of their prisoners once and for all.

As they made their way into said chamber they immediately sent icy stares at their last two living prisoners, Zarel and Mitra. The two sisters stared back with nervous looks of their own. Nyx and Isobel glided over to the spell book stand and awaited the moment they were needed as Seref approached the two prisoners. As she did so, she glanced down next to Mitra at the marble figurine that once was their sister Rolas. She smiled, “Hi my sweet little prisoners. Are you ready to join your sister as nothing more than a lawn decoration?”  Neither of the girls responded or made eye contact with Seref.  Instead they both looked away out of fear. “Hm, well there’s no reason to push this off any further, so which one of you shall be first?”

Again, neither of the sisters answered or even glanced in the witches direction, which annoyed Seref. “Hmpf, fine. I guess I will choose.” She snapped her fingers and suddenly Mitra dissolved into thin air and then reappeared in the middle of the room near Nyx and Isobel. She was stuck frozen in a similar pose as Rolas was when she was turned into a statue. Seref gave Zarel a wicked grin and then sent a wink her way before heading over to join her sisters around the frozen Mitra. Meanwhile Zarel kept looking on with a worried expression with the inanimate Rolas by her side.

“Now, I don’t want to keep our soon to be statue waiting, so let’s begin the ritual sisters.” With that, Seref reached over and scooped some of the green potion into a small goblet and brought it over to the helpless Mitra. As she lifted the goblet to Mitra’s fearful face, she randomly felt a poking sensation on the back of one of her legs. Curious as to what that might be, she turned around quickly, expecting to see a rat or some other small critter at her feet. However, what she instead saw was a tiny foot tall marble statue of Rolas staring up at her with a huge smile. The statue gave Seref a playful wave before grabbing hold of her ankle. And with a sudden movement…CRASH!!! Rolas somehow managed to lift and toss Seref all in one motion into a nearby wall, causing her to spill the green potion on the floor.

Nyx and Isobel looked on in disbelief. What they just saw shouldn’t have been impossible. Rolas shouldn’t be able to move at all in her state, let alone toss their sister like she weighed nothing.  In their confusion however, they also lost focus on the spell that was keeping Mitra frozen and soon she regained her mobility and ran out of reach of the triad sisters and over to the cell that was holding Zarel, who was honestly shocked their plan had worked so well to this point. As Nyx and Isobel regained their composure, Rolas stood between them and Mitra, trying to protect her from them as she attempted to free Zarel.  “Alright Mitra, your plan has worked well so far so how do you plan to get me out of here again? Do you have the key or a spell or something?”

Mitra smiled at Zarel, “Yeah, something like that.” She reached out a hand to the key hole on the cell and then focused. Soon her hand was being manipulated into the shape of a key just big enough to fit into the keyhole. Once her hand was fully transformed, Mitra slotted it into the hole and began to turn it. With a ‘click’ Mitra felt the lock open and quickly she pulled the cell open and Zarel rushed out to give her sister a huge hug.

Meanwhile as the happy reunion took place, Seref was starting to get back to her feet after her hard landing, and she was seething. She stared over at the freed sisters with dark red glowing eyes which terrified even her own sisters of the triad. “Oh no, Seref has that look again!” Nyx said worried.

“I know. She hasn’t made that look in centuries. Let’s make sure not to get in her way.” Isobel said as the two of them rushed over behind their noticeably shaking leader. As the triad had regrouped on one side of the spell chamber, Rolas had met up with her sisters near the cell at the other end of the room and they got into battle stance, ready for whatever the triad had in store for them. “You little worthless ingrates! How dare you make a mockery of me and my sisters! How did you make your marble sister animate again?!?” Seref asked with actual intrigue.

“Well, when you left last night, I used a prototype pill I had our ship’s transmogrifying chamber make for me that gave me the ability to change the molecular structure of my body in anyway I wanted it to. Kinda like a pill form of the actual Transmogrifying chamber. So I made my body structure rubber so I could slip out of the cell and then I used one of your own spells from your spell book to make Rolas human again.” Rolas gave another impish grin to her former captors that made them even more angry.

“So if you turned her human again, why does she still look like a small marble statue?” Nyx asked.

“Well after she was normal again I gave her my last Change pill prototype I had on me so she could transform herself into a living version of her former marble statue form. From there we hatched our plan to make you think we were still vulnerable so we could make our escape.”

Seref had a noticeable twitch in her glowing red eyes at this point. “Enough of this! I don’t care how you got to this point. You’re pathetic escape attempt ends here!” Seref yelled as she lifted her hands into the air above her head creating a blue ball of electricity that was slowly growing. Zarel, Mitra, and Rolas were ready for the worst, not knowing if they could actually avoid whatever Seref was preparing. Just as the ball of electricity reached maximum size…

‘BANG!’

The room quickly was engulfed in a cloud of dust as one of the adjacent walls of the room was smashed open by a random explosion. Both sets of triplets were coughing profusely as they tried to see what caused the destruction. Soon two silhouettes appeared through the smoke and once the room cleared, Zarel knew exactly who it was. “Oh son of a-“ But she was cut off by a Lazer shooting past her face from the two intruders direction.

Into the room walked in two very angry looking women who were aiming two high powered Lazer cannons at Zarel, Mitra, and Rolas. “Well look who we finally found Relu?” Moka, the leader of the Step Triplets, said to her not so friendly looking sister. “If it isn’t the triplets that kidnapped our sister and almost completely destroyed our home city.”

Mitra turned to Zarel with an annoyed look, as this was the exact worry she expressed prior to leaving the ship. Zarel just rolled her eyes, “Ugh! Not now you two. Can’t you see we are kinda preoccupied with these three?”

Moka scoffed at the dismissal, “You really think we care about whatever little games you were playing with these three wannabe witches? We came to get our sister back and make you pay for the decimation of our home city, and we will not let some moody goth sisters get in our way.” Suddenly an electric surge shot past Moka and Relu from the other side of the room. “Hey! Watch it!”

Seref and her sisters moved forward out of the dust, with all three of their eyes glowing red now. “How dare you insult us you worthless pests! These sisters were our prisoners first and we plan on keeping it that way. So either back down or you will join them in their demise.”

“We are not leaving here without those girls.” Relu said with aggression.

“Fine then. You leave us no choice.” Seref said as the triad stared down the Step Triplet duo who redirected their cannons at the Triad sisters. After a brief moment of inaction, Nyx engaged the two sisters by shooting a beam of red light from her hands at them that they easily dodged. Soon it was an all out war between the step triplets duo and the triad. Lasers were darting past the triad while they attempted to land spells on their new adversary, causing even more chaos and destruction to the Triads home.

On the other side of the room, Zarel, Mitra, and Rolas watch in disbelief as the two other groups of sisters tried destroying each other. “Umm, maybe we should take this moment to sneak out of here and back to our ship?” Mitra suggested as she saw one of Relu’s lasers connect with Nyx’s right arm, turning it into a giant bird wing.

“Yeah, let’s get outta here. This way, quick!” Zarel said as she led her sisters out the original doorway to the room that was somehow still intact. As they were leaving though, Seref was able to spot them and her anger doubled once more. “Grrr! Isobel! Our prisoners are escaping! Chase after them and make sure they can’t leave this planet!” She yelled through the dust and chaos. Isobel nodded and quickly slipped out of the ongoing fight that her sisters were still engaged in, and began sprinting after the escaping triplets.

Outside of the Cottage, the three sisters were running as fast as their bodies could muster, while Isobel was closing the distance insanely quick. Since Rolas hadn’t used her pills transformation properties other than to mimic her previous statue body, she was still a tiny marble skinned person.  Yet even in her diminutive size, she somehow was ahead of her sisters and almost back to the ship. Zarel was trailing her sisters trying to knock bushes and small trees over to make it more difficult for Isobel to keep up, but no matter what obstacle was made, Isobel flew right through it, almost like she was a ghost.

Finally the sisters reached the ship and hastily ran up the ramp and into the loading bay. All three girls leaned over in a circle and took a quick moment to gather themselves as they gasped for breath. “Alright, none of my obstacles were working so she’s gotta be right on our tails.” Zarel said exhaustedly.

“So what do we do?” Mitra asked.

“I think we need to split up. We each take a different section of the ship and hopefully we find a way to capture her and immobilize her.”

The girls all agreed to the plan, and soon went in different directions. Zarel went towards the Command Deck, Mitra sprinted towards their sleeping quarters, and Rolas booked it down the last hall hoping to see something she could grab along the way. Meanwhile, Isobel had somehow already gotten to the ship and made her way inside, using her keen witch abilities to hunt down the sisters’ scents. As she scanned the loading bay she locked onto the hallway that Rolas had run down and a small grin came to her face. Soon she was gliding down the hall at top speed.

Rolas wasn’t having any luck finding a weapon in the hallway and it was getting frustrating. She was exhausted, and wanted to stop for just a moment, but suddenly her ears perked up as she heard a faint noise coming from the direction she had just came from. She knew immediately it had to be Isobel so she began sprinting again, desperately trying to find anything to use as a weapon. However, she seemingly wasn’t fast enough, and out of nowhere, a gust of wind blew past Rolas, and brought her to a halt, as she was staring down Isobel who now stood in front of her menacingly. “Hey little pretty. Let’s not make this harder than it needs to be. Surrender and come with me peacefully and I won’t have to turn you into a toad.” Isobel said with darkness growing inside her.

Rolas still hadn’t transformed her mouth back to normal so she was completely silent this whole time, which may have helped her since she really wanted to scream right now. Not being able to talk though gave her the time to desperately scan her surroundings as she backed herself slowly away from Isobel. As she was backing up though, she bumped up against an odd protrusion coming from the wall behind her.  She quickly felt at it subtly and realized she recognized what was behind her, and swiftly an idea came to her.

“Do you not have the decency to acknowledge me when I give you orders, or are you just deaf? Listen bitch, I will not hesitate to make you a-aaahhh!!!” Isobel screeched as Rolas pulled the handle on the door behind her and in one movement pulled Isobel back with her into the Transmogrifying room, which slammed shut behind the girls as they stumbled onto the floor together. In no time, Isobel was getting back up to her feet, scratching her head where she hit it on the ground. Ow, that hurt bitch! Now your definitely Turning into a lizard. Wait where’d you go?” As Isobel whipped her head around she couldn’t see anyone else in the room with her. That’s when she started feeling something crawling up her back and she immediately shook her body violently, hoping to knockoff her body’s intruder. Soon Rolas was on top of Isobel’s shoulder and she saw the control panel to the room on the wall closest to them. So before Isobel could grab her she mad a leap of faith towards the panel. Sure enough she was able to grab onto the panel and open it up.

Isobel saw what Rolas was about to do and her eyes grew wide with fear for the first time in her life. Desperately she flew towards the panel to stop Rolas, but Rolas did not hesitate and immediately pushed the randomizer option on the panel, and in an instant, the room lit up in a blinding white light that engulfed the two ladies.

Several minutes later, Zarel and Mitra, who had met back up with each other, were sprinting down the hall in a hope to save their sister from Isobel. “I hope Rolas is ok! She never changed back to normal before we left. Maybe Isobel already got to her!” Mitra said worriedly.

“Don’t think like that. Have you forgotten, that’s Rolas you’re talking about. She’s tougher than both of us combined. She can handle that witch in any condition.” Zarel said, trying to believe what she was saying. As they rounded a corner they approached the transmogrifying room and noticed a red bar above the door meaning that the room was in use currently.  Cautiously, the sisters tiptoed towards the door’s window to see what was inside the room. As they glanced inside, they were stunned at what they saw, each turning there head in confusion. “Is that… a pair of couches?” Zarel said, as she opened the door, clearly not threatened by the room’s occupants anymore.

The two girls entered the room and approached the tow brown leather couches carefully. What made the sight even odder was the fact that they were identical couches, except one was full size and the other was basically a scale model of the other couch, only about a foot tall. Zarel went up and felt the leather on both couches before turning and leaping onto the full size couch. “Wow, this is a nice couch! Very comfy! Mitra you have to try it out!” She yelled out, but didn’t get a response from her sister. Instead as she turned towards her sister, she saw Mitra standing in the doorway still, hands crossed with a annoyed look on her face aimed directly at her sister. “What? Oh come on, lighten up. I promise if you lay on this couch for just a second, then that look on your face will melt away into heavenly bliss.” Mitra’s expression didn’t change a bit.

Zarel just rolled her eyes as she got up from the couch and examined the two couches again. “I wonder which one is Rolas. Any idea Mitra?” She asked as she looked back again at her sister, who raised an eyebrow at her with disdain. “Please don’t give me that look. That’s your ‘I told you so’ look. Ok, fine! You were right, we should’ve had a better game plan when we got here. Is that what you want to hear?” Zarel said, trying to calm her normally gleeful sister. Mitra simply walked passed her sister and picked up the tiny couch and put it under her arm and then turned right back around and headed out of the room, leaving Zarel behind to wallow in her guilt. Zarel, feeling bad about the whole thing, fell back onto the couch behind her. After a moment of reflection, she starting bouncing her butt up and down on the couch, “Man this couch is really comfy. I wonder if Mitra will let me keep this one as well. Hey Mitra! Once you have Rolas stored away for now, let’s get the ship ready to take off! Don’t want those other 4 catching us. Especially not after turning another one into furniture. Hehe.” Zarel yelled to her sister who was already a ways down the hall.

(A little bit later)

Zarel and Mitra are finally in the command deck prepping the ship for departure. As they begin the takeoff initiation, Seref, Nyx, Moka, and Relu are making their way quickly towards the ship, realizing after fighting for hours that they should’ve been working together this whole time. But as they got to where the ship had been sitting, all they were in time to see was the backside of the ship as it was leaving the atmosphere. Frustrated that the space triplets had gotten away again, the four women huddled together. “They cannot get away again!” Moka grumbled out loud before looking to Seref and Nyx who were visibly upset as well. “Look, we were wrong to attack you when we should’ve let you handle the sisters first. Maybe if we had, then we could’ve had our sister back right now. But right now I think we need to band together and make a vow to bring those insufferable sisters to justice. What do you say? Truce?” Moka held out a hand to Seref who stared at her for a moment. “They have taken our dear sister Isobel hostage as well now. Without her, our powers are not complete.” She reached out a hand and shook Moka’s. “We will pledge to join you in hunting down these malfecents and rescuing our fallen sisters. Besides, it’s not just them that we will be saving, but rather, the universe in its entirety as well.”