An adventure filled with spells gone haywire, villainous plots, chase scenes and Nekross invasions in the Clarkes' living room! Tom, Benny, Ursula and Michael are in for a wild ride… Set early series two.

Contains mild violence and threat.

Chapter One

Ursula Crowe was up late one Friday night crushing herbs and adding them to a potion. She took occasional glimpses at the book of spells, trying to perfect the methods they described. A small gust of wind blew the pages, and she speedily held them down with her hands. The breeze gradually died down, and a few distant giggles echoed through the chamber.

Randal Moon staggered over to the Mistress Crowe, clutching about the biggest jar you could possibly imagine fitting on one of the chamber's wooden shelves, which appeared to be empty.

"Will you be needing this, mistress?" he asked, straining under the bottle's weight.

"Oh!" cried Ursula, "Thank you, Moon! Draughts from the peak of Kilimanjaro!" Her voice became quieter. "That's the final ingredient for the wind sprite banishing charm."

"Pesky things!" cursed Moon, "Randal Moon will be wishing them good riddance!"

"Don't say that!" shrieked Mrs Crowe, but she was too late, as the angry wind sprites revengefully caused a massive gale.

Ursula clung for dear life onto her table she was mixing the potion on, but unfortunately it wasn't exactly sturdy so it started to scrape slowly over the floor, dragging her with it, until she accidentally let go and flew across the room. Moon grappled a nearby shelf, trying to prevent all the bottles making a dive for freedom. Before long, the sprites' tempers cooled and the winds went down, leaving Ursula to pick up the pieces.

"I've probably lost my page!" she exclaimed, scrambling to her table.

"Randal Moon will be watching his language from now on," said Moon guiltily.

Mrs Crowe, however, suddenly froze at the sight of what was written on the page her spell book had unintentionally been turned to.

"I don't believe it," she mused, pulling down her glasses for a better look at the spell.

"What will you be finding, Mistress Crowe?" enquired the hobgoblin, going over to her side.

"It's a spell that could solve all our problems!" chirped Granny excitedly, "I have got to tell the others! It could end our battles with the Nekross once and for all!"

WIZARDS VS ALIENS

"Just an illusion"

The next morning, Tom Clarke marched triumphantly into the kitchen, grasping a dark grey spheroid.

"What's that you've got there, Tom?" enquired his Dad, who was already there.

Tom settled the item on the breakfast bar, and announced it was a dragon egg, which he and Benny had found that morning, on errand of Gran. "If this thing had hatched in the middle of the park it was hidden in, the Nekross would have come swooping down the moment it learned to breathe fire and found the gateway to the Netherside that it came through."

Benny sauntered into the room next. "Tom performed a spell that would seal up the hole in the oak tree. The Nekross will never find the breach!"

"…but who was it that suggested that the gateway was in the oak tree? I couldn't have done it without you!"

"Boys!" Granny interrupted, entering into the room, "I've got some exciting news!"

"What is it, Ursula?" asked Michael Clarke.

"I've found a spell that could help us defeat the Nekross!"

"That's brilliant!" cried Benny in astonishment.

"Hang on a minute," replied Michael sceptically, screwing up his face, "The last time you said that you managed to move the Nekross ship…ooh…maybe a hundred furlongs?"

"This is nothing like that, Michael," responded Granny, before turning rather thoughtful yet with a mischievous air, "I do believe we are about to give the Nekross a taste of their own medicine." She led the way to the chamber. "Come along, boys! There's no time to waste!"

Tom shrugged and everybody followed.

Gran knocked twice on the lavatory door. "Chamber of Crowe, open to me…" she began, before Benny interjected, "Excuse me. Could you please stop? I really need the toilet."

"Oh! Yes! Of course!" said Ursula, letting him brush past her, and into the loo.

…

Inside the chamber of mysteries, Granny flicked back to the page of the spell she had run into last night.

"I had not seen anything like it in years," she explained, "And if it hadn't been for those wind sprites I doubt I would have ever seen it again. There!" Tom, Benny and Dad gathered close. "The guising spell! It will cause the beholder to suppose that the person looks like anything the spell caster desires – an animal, a plant, an object, perhaps."

"A bit like the form filter?" Tom caught on.

"Oh, yes, Thomas! I could easily disguise someone so they could walk amongst the Nekross without them raising suspicion."

"You mean, actually make them look like a Nekross!" Benny answered enthusiastically.

"Of a sort," continued the Mistress, "The person whom the spell is cast upon won't actually look like a Nekross, but rather the Nekross will THINK that they are!"

"…and that means if we could somehow beam them onto the ship, they could sabotage it!" Benny reeled off ecstatically.

"Exactly! Just think of the possibilities!"

"Hold on," butted in Michael, hands on hips, "Are you saying you are going to beam up Tom or Benny onto the Nekross spaceship with some incredibly difficult plan to interfere with their technology which we don't even know very much about?"

"Not just yet, Michael!" defended Granny, "This is going to take weeks if not months to plan if we want this to work. I don't even know what we'll use this spell for, but it sounds so promising!"

"Where do we start?" Tom jumped straight into the adventure.

"Well, first I need to perfect the guising spell." She peered around. There was silence. "Any volunteers?"

Tom gradually stuck up his hand. "I guess I'll be the guinea pig," he commented.

"Would you please move over there, Thomas?" asked Granny, beckoning to a spot a few metres from the table she was stood by. Tom sauntered into position.

Moon came out of the shadows to watch the demonstration. "Be standing well back!" he advised Dad and Benny, "This will be a spell of mighty power." Mr Clarke backed nearer to the chamber entrance, which was left from his mother-in-law's point of view, whilst Benny went nearer to the dragon skeleton.

Ursula threw on a nearby cloak, whilst Dad said to her, "Before you go charging off with this ingenious new idea of yours, are you certain you can turn my son into a Nekross and back? I don't want you to make a mistake and end up making him look like a Netherside troll for a week!"

"Oh! Don't worry, Michael!" insisted Granny, "It's not the most complicated of enchantments, I can tell you." She gazed into the spell book and began chanting, "Koothe mee shay jan zan dah!" which was followed by even more gobbledegook. Finally, she raised her staff, which was glowing red and writhing with magic, pointing it her grandson. She shouted another unfamiliar word to complete the spell.

There was a terrific flash of red light.

Ursula beamed as she saw it really had changed Tom's appearance…and then her face fell when she realised what it had changed into.

"Oh my word," she said forlornly.

"What just happened?" enquired Thomas before he become aware of a very odd sensation on his ears. One of his hands flew to the side of his head. What had Granny done to his ears? As far as he was concerned, it felt as though they had become like a Vulcan's!

"That…was not what I intended," confessed Ursula, trying to grin off her error, "Benny? I think you ought to show Thomas a mirror."

Obediently, Tom's best friend fetched a looking glass from a nearby table.

"Whoa!" shouted Tom the moment he saw his reflection. He really did have Mr Spock ears! What the heck had happened there?!

"I thought you said this was an easy spell," said Michael crossly.

"Perhaps I misjudged it," responded Ursula, "It appears I have actually turned young Thomas into an elf. If I had just made him look like one, he would not have felt his ears change. OH! Not another failed incantation!" She went back to her volume. "What HAVE I got wrong now?"

"Could you turn me back, please?" beseeched Tom, starting to panic.

Without giving anyone a chance to object, Granny prompted cried, "Koothe mee zay quan zan dah! Ashay wan dah!"

There was a clap of thunder. Mrs Crowe seemed hopeful…until she discovered her spell had failed again.

Dad put a hand over his face in despair.

Benny held up the mirror for Tom's reference. The young wizard flinched when he beheld that he not only still had elfin ears but his skin was bright green!

"Oh dear!" panicked Gran, "That wasn't supposed to happen. I'll try once more."

Tom ran his hands through his hair (which thankfully was still brown as normal), trying not to freak out.

"Koothe mee shay quan zan dah! Ashay fan dah!" Ursula yelled wildly. The rainbow fire exploded from her cane in an abundance no-one had seen the likes of before, and burst upon Thomas. Everyone ducked.

Had it worked? Granny nervously rose to see what had become of her grandson.

"Well…I suppose it could have been worse…" she contemplated.

Tom could no longer feel a peculiar sensation on his ears. In fact, he could no longer feel his ears at all. Instead, he was rather aware of an even stranger feeling on the sides of his head. He reached up to touch his cheeks only to find something in the way.

Benny had just straightened himself, and cringed at the thought of what his poor friend would see when the mirror was passed to him. He held up the glass for Tom, who got the fright of his life.

Peering back at him was a yellow Nekross, clad in blue armour, antennae wiggling in distress.