“I’m starting to get the hang of spellcasting, but while Tharen and Gartho have been helpful, they haven’t really been able to help much beyond the basics,” Estella sighed as she walked alongside Jay. “There’s just so much I have to figure out on my own.”
It had been a couple of days since what frankly had been the most insane day of her life. Whereas most students would be thrilled about a small break like this, Estella had more important things on her mind that needed doing - training, and patrolling for potential threats to the town. Because the fact that a Namorrodor was in the area meant that, intentionally or not, any number of malicious entities were likely being drawn to Angel Bay. That was really not good.
Right now, it was a fairly quiet afternoon, shortly after lunch. Estella and Jay were walking around town, essentially on patrol, leaving the shopping district.
“Ugh, I wish I could help in some way. Tried looking up magical runes online, but only got pop culture stuff and scraps from really niche websites,” said Jay, scratching his head. They were at least being mindful of other people around them when it came to talking about paranormal matters, but the streets were relatively clear. “It really sucks knowing what on the up and up and just watching you guys having to fight the bad guys on your own without any real way to help.”
Estella smiled softly, glancing at her ex-boyfriend. “I appreciate that you want to help. It’s sweet.”
“Well, you may be my ex but you’re still my friend,” Jay chuckled, putting his hands in his pockets as they arrived at a crossing and waited for the signal to turn green. Still, his smile turned into a frown as he looked forward towards the other side of the road. “Right now, most of our peers are just partying because of the ‘gas leak’. How am I supposed to sit still and not do something productive, knowing what I know?”
“And there’s that hero complex coming out again,” Estella grinned.
“I don’t have a hero complex!” Jay objected with a groan.
Estella laughed, patting him on the back as the light turned green and they started walking again. He was way too easy to tease about that. “Come on, you know I’m kidding. But you do want to help people and enact proper justice and all that.”
“Makes what the government are doing all the more galling to me,” noted Jay, with gritted teeth. “The whole town is in danger and only a select few of us know it. They’re actively wiping memories and convincing people that the paranormal isn’t real, even though it’s an active threat in our town.”
“I hate to interrupt, but unfortunately, the government likely has just cause,” Galowye said. Right now he was in the form of a sword pendant hanging from Estella’s neck. “There are legitimate reasons to suppress knowledge of the paranormal. Firstly… Magic would potentially suppress the development of technology.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” said Jay, his glaze briefly focused the pendant.
“Thaumia is proof enough. The level of standard technology in Thaumia has been largely stagnant for the last few centuries, as I’ve learned from the Librarians,” said Galowye. “The mirror world is mostly stuck in the Renaissance period. Most intellectual efforts that would be dedicated towards technology are focused on magic instead, precisely because magic is so versatile, and most people can learn it thanks to the standardisation of runes. If knowledge of magic became widespread, everyone would be climbing over each other to master it. In the wider galaxy, magic only became widespread once technology became advanced enough to make magic not quite so special.”
“That’s the problem with ‘magic’, I suppose. The connotations of the word imply it can do almost anything,” Jay grit his teeth again. “You implied there was another reason?”
“Can you imagine the mass panic and chaos that would ensue from the revelation that all kinds of monsters and demons exist out there, hiding just outside of our view?” Galowye posited, “the Thaumians are used to it. A lot of people here could be driven mad by the sheer paranoia. If every government on Earth is so committed to keeping the paranormal secret, then they believe societies across the planet simply are not prepared for the truth yet.”
“Well, the cat’s out of that bag now,” said Estella as she looked up to the sky. The shield still seemed to hold strong. “There’s literally no way anyone can explain that. And people on the news say astronomers are seeing starships engaging in combat. Nobody’s gonna claim two countries are engaging in space combat, so the only conclusion is that aliens are real and are fighting over our planet.”
“True. Even if magic can still be hidden, the paranormal is exposed to the entire Earth,” Galowye agreed. “It’s only a matter of time before it all comes to light. Whether the world is ready for it is another matter.”
“Speaking of ready… Do you feel ready at all, Estella?” asked Jay. “You’re still training, and still basically a novice at this ‘Arcane Knight’ stuff.”
Estella grinned, “chillax, mate. My sisters and I wiped the floor with the big bad dude and his minions without any training whatsoever. Now that we’re more experienced and knowledgeable, this’ll be a cinch.”
“Uh-huh.” Estella noticed some concern emerge on Jay’s face as he narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brow. “I’ll give you the dime a dozen mooks, but the head honcho did give you four a bit of trouble.”
“Eh, that’s because we’re new to this,” chuckled Estella as she punched the air excitedly, “he tries to talk the talk, but chances are he’ll just be some goofy bad guy who we’ll clown on every week for a while until we shut down his operations for good. I mean, come on, ‘Dark Emperor’ in Latin? He’s a total dork underneath. You know how these things go, Jay.”
“Yeah, in classic magical girl anime or sentai shows. If you’re gonna talk genre savviness, Es, then may I remind you that a Namorrodor tried to eat a baby the other night. It’s just as possible we’re in a story where one of the main characters gets graphically decapitated in the third episode.”
That got Estella to shudder. The mere thought of something like that happening to herself, her sisters or any of her friends was… Not pleasant, to say the least. “Ugh, don’t remind me of that. I totally get what you’re trying to say, but… I don’t want to think about it.”
“This is reality, not some fiction, you two. It’s wise to always maintain some level of caution, and never expect anything to always go well,” Galowye noted in his usual wizened tone.
“As the saying goes, no plan survives first contact with the enemy,” Estella nodded. “Yeah, that’s fair enough.”
“Hmm. Interesting quote. I’ve heard generals speak variations, but not that exact saying,” Galowye mused.
“You wouldn’t know it, it’s from the late nineteenth century by a Prussian writer,” Estella chuckled. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m taking this seriously, but I don’t see how this isn’t a problem we can’t handle.”
Before the conversation could continue, Estella stopped when she heard the sound of singing. And it wasn’t in English, as far as she could tell. “Wait. You hear that?”
Jay nodded, evidently attempting to discern the direction of the singing as he held a hand to his ear. He then started running towards a nearby alleyway. “I think it’s this way!”
Estella quickly came to the same conclusion as she sprinted after him, and they both stopped at the alleyway entrance.
Deep in the alleyway, were two women. Estella recognised… One of her ex-girlfriends, June, the one who was begging to restart their relationship the other day. The darker-skinned woman with her was covered by a cloak and old rags - she was the one singing. She had her hands on the student’s cheeks. In her hand, Estella spied a piece of June’s hair.
June seemed to be rather smitten and entranced, regularly engaging in kissing with the strange woman between verses. Estella could easily feel the magical energy flowing between the two of them.
“This is one of the exceptions to the use of ‘witch’ as a term,” Galowye said sternly. “The Australian continent is inhabited by evil witches of both sexes, using both traditional Aboriginal magic and their own foul black magic for their own purposes. I don’t know why this girl is being entranced by love magic, but I doubt it’s for anything good.”
“Noted,” Estella said, loading up an immediate set of runes in her head - Electricity, Missile, Tracking, Magic and Cancel. She thrust her left hand forward as she stepped into the alleyway, the right hand gripping her pendant, “Jay, get ready to grab her and run!”
Jay nodded, with a gulp, “oh, geez… Alright!”
Estella immediately changed into her armour and fully manifested Galowye in her right hand, as she cast ‘Cancel Magic’, immediately breaking the spell over June, who stumbled back in a daze. Estella then rushed the confused and panicked witch with a charging thrust of her blade. The witch jumped back with supernatural agility, barely avoiding getting outright skewered, but blood was still drawn was the sword cut into her waist.
The witch snarled as she shouted in a language Estella didn’t recognise, as Estella continued her pursuit, delivering quick vertical strikes and thrusts in an attempt to strike her again. The witch was faster than Estella had expected, however, only sustaining relatively shallow cuts. The problem was that the alleyway was too narrow to permit horizontal strikes, which also made it harder to move her sword around.
Estella heard Jay grab and drag June out of the alleyway. Good. That was one bystander out of the way.
The witch suddenly smiled and her black hair, previously mostly hidden by her cloak, suddenly extended outwards from under it, as if moving by itself, and extended quickly into a rope-like structure that reached up towards the top of the building to the right of her, pulling her upwards rapidly, as she taunted Estella with a wicked laugh.
Estella swore, firing off a tracking electrical bolt, which surprised the witch by electrocuting her, but it didn’t stop her in her tracks. She swapped Magic, Cancel and Tracking for Air, Move and Creature, which took a couple of crucial seconds, but the spell she chained together allowed her to take flight. With a proper standing jump, she launched herself off the ground, the very air itself carrying her to enable flight. The ‘Time’ rune as a modifier twice over extended the effect to roughly fifteen minutes.
As she had learned during her training, Galowye had five ‘spell slots’ that would have allowed her to store the information of specific spells for later spellcasting without the need to assemble the required runes in the heat of the moment, which would be incredibly useful. Unfortunately, centuries of dormancy had taken their toll on him, and thus the slots were unusable for now. At the time, Galowye had remarked it had been both a blessing and a curse.
Also, being able to fly with magic was one of the coolest things ever, hands down, as far as Estella was concerned.
Estella flew up and over the edge of the rooftop, but before she could properly regain sight on her target, something grabbed a hold of her legs, pulling her down to the roof itself.
She looked down, seeing two ropes of hair coiled around her legs, the other end of each seemingly glued to the roof itself. Another four coils of rope shot out from spots in front of her, restraining her arms and coiling around her waist and neck, holding her in place. Damn it, she must’ve set up a trap right before I flew up! Estella thought to herself with some frustration.
“You surprised me, girl,” spoke the witch in clear English, staring at Estella with blood red eyes from several meters away. “But you’re still just a novice with sorcery. But that’s fine. You’ll make a much better pet than that girl you saved.”
Thinking quickly, Estella swapped out the Electricity rune for Fire, took a deep breath, and set the hair ropes ablaze.
Jay pulled the female student back out of the alleyway, watching Estella pursue the witch. He turned the dazed girl towards him. “Are you alright?”
That seemed to break her stupor, and she shook her head blinking, “I think I am…” She looked down the alleyway, seeing the fight going down. “What the actual hell…?! I saw that girl on campus the other day! But wasn’t that was just a gas-induced hallucination?!”
“Maybe it wasn’t after all,” said Jay, picking his words cautiously. Best not to expose any connections to the magical girl warrior or reveal that he knew more than he should. “She seems to have things under control, so lets not get close.”
“That woman snipped off a piece of my hair when passing me by, I tried to chase her down because like, ‘what the fuck, lady?’, and suddenly she’s singing and I’m just… Infatuated, I guess? Like, I felt like I was madly in love,” the girl shuddered. Estella was starting to follow the witch up to the roof. “What did she do to me?!”
“Whatever she did, it’s over now,” Jay said, trying his best to be reassuring. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name, you are…?”
“June,” the girl looked back over her shoulder towards the fight. “Uh… Is that girl flying? I don’t see any wires or anything!”
Oh, right, no wonder she looked kinda familiar, she was one of Estella’s exes. She had quite a few of them, which made things awkward sometimes. “Yeah, I see it too,” said Jay with a nod.
“Oh my God, we really should call the police!” June said, panicking, taking out her phone.
“N-No, we shouldn’t!” Jay blurted out. He wracked his brain for a good way to explain this to her, before hitting on an idea - chances are he’d come off like a conspiracy nut, but it was the best he could think of. “Think about it. Don’t you think the last time on campus was a little weird? They explained it away as a ‘gas leak’, but only a couple of days later-”
“Wait so you think they’re doing the whole ‘Men In Black’ thing with the memory erasure and stuff?!” June winced. That went better than Jay expected, frankly, letting her imagination run wild was probably for the best.
“I don’t think they erase memories,” Jay shook his head. “But making us think we didn’t actually see what we saw has the same effect. The government will just do it again if you report this to the police.”
“Then what do we-”
“Hey, did you two see a witch go by here?”
Jay and June both turned to the source of another voice speeding towards them. A young woman about their age, with darker skin, brown eyes and black frizzy hair. She wore a blue hoodie, and loose black pants, along with a black backpack. Jay thought at first glance that she might been of Aboriginal descent, but he wasn’t entirely sure. He also felt there was something kind of odd about her body language, but he couldn’t pin down what. Also, who asks that kind of question?! Jay spoke up first, “uh… Apparently? She’s now on the rooftops, so…”
“Awesome, thanks!” The new girl smiled, dashed inside the alleyway, and her hair also formed a rope that caused her to zip upwards towards the rooftops.
Both Jay and June just stared in awkward silence, jaws open in shock as the girl disappeared over the edge of the roof.
“I think I need to go lie down,” said June.
“Probably for the best, yeah,” Jay said. He wasn’t sure if he was ever going to get used to any of this.
Estella was glad that she was actually wearing full-body armour and not the skimpy outfit she appeared to be wearing, otherwise setting her restraints on fire might’ve actually hurt her.
Still, the flames weren’t burning the hair as effectively as she would’ve liked. She had to struggle to tear the one off her sword arm, as the witch panicked and launched fireballs at her, using a simple torch she had pulled out of her cloak as a catalyst. A few fireballs did strike her, and while they didn’t do as much damage as they would’ve otherwise due to her innate magical resistance and her armour, they still hurt, causing Estella to grit her teeth.
She swatted down a few more with her sword, and ripped away the rope holding her other arm, launching fireballs of her own back at her adversary. The witch stumbled back, crying out in pain, but she muttered something in that unknown language, causing the ropes of hair around Estella to begin to reform, forcing her to focus her efforts on dealing with them once more.
I gotta get rid of these properly and fast, otherwise this’ll just become a battle of attrition, Estella thought to herself, as she started burning and hacking at the hair while blocking incoming fireballs.
Suddenly, a few more fireballs zipped past her, slamming into the witch. Estella looked towards where they had come from - a young Aboriginal woman her age, holding a lighter.
The witch’s eyes widened, and she took a step back. This was enough of a distraction that Estella was able to finish off the hair around her, burning it to ashes.
Snarling, the witch snapped something in an accusatory tone at the newcomer, before snuffing out the torch she carried, muttering another incantation.
The world around them went dark, as if it was the dead of night, without any nearby lights.
Estella realised this darkness was artificial, and took the moment to swap in Dark and Cancel, casting a spell from the two runes.
The artificial darkness faded, but the witch was gone.
“DAMN IT! I HATE IT when they pull that trick!” The other girl snapped in frustration, throwing up her hands after putting out the lighter, stepping up beside Estella.
“I’ll get her next time,” said Estella as she swapped out Fire for Water, dousing any nearby flames. “Thanks for the help, I guess.”
“No problem! Man, that was a rush,” the girl giggled. “The spiritual landscape around here is so much different from the Blue Mountains, I was having a hard time finding my way around.”
Estella blinked, turning to the new girl. She was quite strange. “What are you…?”
“I believe she’s perceiving the spiritual layer of the world itself… Probably through the use of drugs made from native plants,” said Galowye.
“Oh, so she’s high, then,” said Estella.
“Hey, you can’t see how things really are if you’re sober! It’s my own special blend, you should try it sometime!” The girl then proceeded to nearly tip over, not helping her case, before she recovered her balance. “Name’s Arika, what’s yours?”
“Uh… Estella. Just don’t go telling anyone my name, please.”
“No worries, I won’t! Anyway, gotta run, don’t wanna stay in one place otherwise the government will get me. Let’s meet up again sometime!”
As Arika zipped away, Estella sighed, jogging over to the other side of the building. Best change back into her casual outfit discreetly and meet up with Jay again before the authorities show up…
“Ah, that explains a lot. I’ve heard something about that once - ‘the sober mind is too attached to the reality it perceives to touch upon the truth within the spirit of things’,” Jay said, rubbing his chin as he and Estella sat together on a bench at a nearby park. “In Aboriginal folklore, it’s believed that all things have spirits, or at least some kind of spiritual energy. You need to be able to detach yourself from physical reality to perceive the spiritual reality, or at least that’s how it goes from what I remember.”
“There is certainly an element of truth to that, yes,” said Galowye.
“Yeah, just wasn’t expecting to run into two witches today, one good and one evil,” Estella shook her head. “Arika could’ve at least given me her number or something.”
“Does she even have a phone?” Jay chuckled. “She’s probably a witch from the Blue Mountains. Apparently a bunch of witches live in that area, both bad and good. If she’s going after the evil witch, then that one must’ve been drawn here by our enemy.”
“Joy, first the shooting star monster and now this,” Estella groaned, slouching forward a little bit. “Please tell me June’s okay.”
“I sent her home. Told her to perhaps talk to that nosy reporter from the other day if she wants to get the word out,” Jay said, leaning back against the bench, “guess we’re not resting on our laurels after all.”
“I figured as much,” Estella nodded. “I need to train more. The fact that the evil witch gave me trouble is enough proof of that.”
“The fact that you’re introspective enough to recognise that is a good sign. You will be a fine knight indeed,” said Galowye approvingly. “Still… I wish I could do more to help. Unfortunately, as an Arcane Arm, I rarely participated in more basic training. My previous wielders were usually already experienced warriors and mages. You’re the first Arcane Knight I’ve ever had who has yet to receive proper training.”
“Yeah, I gotta work out most of the basics all on my own,” Estella groaned. “This isn’t going to get any easier, is it?”
“At least you’re not alone,” said Jay with a smile. “I wish I could do more, but I hope moral support is enough.”
Estella chuckled. “Could at least bring a shotgun.”
“Don’t have a gun license. Might actually get one if things start getting hairy,” Jay said. Estella noticed his face blank, and he groaned, facepalming. “Oh my God that wasn’t meant to be a pun I swear.”
“No, I get it,” Estella laughed. She looked up towards the sky as she leaned back, smiling. At least now she would be more ready next time.
