Ashara had not run in what would probably be described as ‘years’, but she certainly did so today.

“Why are you encroaching upon my masssster’s groundsss?” 

The voice bounced through the trees and thick brush of the virgin rainforest. Cuts and scrapes began to form on her legs, still sore from all the walking she had done in the past few days. She never really noticed the pain until now, however. 

“Do you believe in earnessst you will reach me?”

She began to pant while was losing ground. The voice and hissing began to grow slightly more distant. 

With a sigh, the tiny witch stopped. Her jovial mask slipped once more, now that there was no one around to placate any longer. 

She wanted her toy back.

“I was hoping to save some energy, but…” With a simple motion, she began to lift off of the ground and out of the brush. There was a sweet spot over the wide brimmed leaves and the obelisk-like trees that she found to be substantially easier to traverse. With a renewed vigor, she began to weave in-and-out between trunks, picking up far more speed than before.

 “T-Turn back! Or I ssshall have to defeat you!” As the hissing and accompanying voice began to return to it’s original timbre, a figure began to take shape between the foliage. 

Hovering above the creature, she finally caught up to the beast.

The beast was massive, able to move through the brush with little effort. Even while hovering over it, Ashara could tell it was quite the monster. Most notable to her was that it was two creatures combined into one, much like what she left behind with the slime. A basilisk, or giant snake, much more common on the mountains of Alzahett, and Great Horn, decorative, to be precise. Their spines were merged, serpentine head and body coming out of the back end of the hulking beast, the latter’s intelligence enlightening the former, hence the strange manner of speaking.

The witch sighed, “Oh geez, Eldura…” 

“Y-You!” Stammering, the mammalian half of the creature looked up in disbelief, “You’re a… a witch?”

Ashara ignored the creature’s question. Locating a lump in the snake part’s throat, she sliced the creature’s head off underneath.

 

 

The flaming man continued to walk towards Bellamy, even inside the shelter, out of the cascading drops of water that hurt the both of them. Sounds of the sheets of water colliding with the roof of the structure filled the space as the rain almost seemed like it wanted to follow the man in. 

“S-So! What is your name? Being made of fire must be quite uncomfortable, huh?” As the monster resumed his stumbling forward, the slime spoke faster, hoping one of her words would wake him from this stupor.

“Help… me…” 

“I’m trying!” The slime shouted ineffectively. Quickly looking for something to defend herself with, the man fell forward, his arms landing against her base. Her skin burned in contact with his, a sensation of pain crawling up the single cell she called her body, passing up the signal that she needed to get away from what was causing the damage.

“Augh!” Violently pulling away from the burning slime, Bellamy looked at the man, now scrambling to reach her once more. “What are you doing?” She shouted, her words falling on deaf ears.

Bellamy barely had a chance to examine the damage before the man continued to crawl forth, looking to smother his flames against her body. Remaining prone, he continued to scramble on his elbows.

The slime pressed herself against the wall of the shelter, flattening more than what any human could, in an attempt to continue her coercion. 

Unabated, the veritable fire elemental continued, “Help…” 

“Help what? How can I assist you?” She pleaded, sliding out from the wall and between the man and the continuing rain. If running away was an option, she would have taken it plenty of times by now. 

Mind racing, the alchemist struggled between finding a solution and remaining aware of the situation unfolding before her. While fire was something easily strangled out by the removal of oxygen, the downpour should have taken care of any open flame. She needed something more.

As she continued to recall the basics of fire and its management, the flaming man began to pick himself up once more. 

“Ah, sod it all!” There was no other choice.

The slime tackled the burning corpse, making sure to keep her core away from any contact. Engulfing him was like wrapping one’s body over an open flame. She could feel nuclei die from the heat element, their dying signals screaming at the rest of her body to remove itself from this source of damage.

Struggling inside her gelatinous form, the man reflexively reached out with every remaining limb in a desperate attempt to pull himself free from the living liquid. Ensuring every inch of his body remained inside, she fought through the burning sensation to contain him, lest he ignites once more with the abundance of oxygen outside.

It hurt.

Far more than anything the alchemist had ever endured. The brain is nuanced enough to shut off nerve endings when confronted with too much pain, but there was nothing like that in this new form. Each part of her was an independent agent, only communicating with the core in order to survive. 

But she had a tool at her disposal no man ever had.

With a quick hand motion, the slime she consisted of grew dense. Shifting from a rustic red to a dark brown, her mass became opaque and viscous. Bellamy felt her movements grow sluggish, the usually aqueous membrane not as responsive to what she had begun to grow accustomed to. With even less oxygen, the pain began to recede as the flames finally died down.

As the being finally stopped struggling, possibly out of air to breathe, she shunted off the part of her form that contained him, severing the signal for her to stop.

The slime became inert, a separate glob that coated him nearly half a hand in depth on each side. 

Smothering the flames, he still was exuding a seemingly bottomless well of fire mana, but no longer burned with the searing pain he once did on contact. But she just needed a second to breathe.

Finally flattening out on the ground, Bellamy lazily calculated she had around lost half of her body mass in performing such a stunt. A crash of thunder reverberated what she could feel she had left. Her mind was heavy as the panic began to fade. She no longer had an endocrine system, but her consciousness felt the phantom pain of her adrenaline pumping.

Finally at peace, the man laid in the blob of slime, a look of relief alighting what remained of his face.

 

“Are you sure it would work?”

The rains had finally died around the shelter. A particularly long thunderstorm, the trail of incinerated grasses that formed the fire elemental’s path was now plain to see in the bright sunshine, unaware of the damages they took while it was away.

They had found Bellamy inert close by the once-flaming man, now deceased. Thankfully, it appeared the slime had not yet met a similar fate.

Ashara held the discarded limb she had severed from the burning invader, now emanating fire mana, but not aflame as it was when she cut it. 

“I don’t see why not? Plus, you said you wanted to see what The Eternal had taught me, right?” It had been around a week or so since Sara gave up the ghost on the rejuvenation spell, but between the time she had to try plus access to both of the most powerful magic users she had ever known, it was as good a time as any. 

Beginning the incantation, the succubus had remembered a key takeaway from her tutor: replace the light mana the spell required with dark mana. 

Sara closed her eyes, much similar to how she was taught by Farazad. She had seen dark mana in passing as it was drawn to her, but it was finally time to utilize it. Strangely enough, there was not as much as she expected, something that gave her a light shock. She began to ponder as to why, but as a being derived from the hells, she had no trouble converting some.

An hour passed as certain parts of the incantation had to be re-remembered and further instruction had to be pulled from a sending spell with her teacher. 

Ashara sat back in amazement.

Her former familiar, originally a man who knew not even the basics of spellcrafting, was quickly adapting a high level spell ad hoc with only one hand. Conjuring a paper and pen, her hand flew over the sheet in an attempt to record the miracle that was occurring before her. 

“Is it because of the infernal instincts of her new body? Maybe her compatibility with mana lends itself to a far quicker adaptation than those with less? Or maybe…?”

“Or perhaps you actually set me up with a good teacher?” Sara smirked as she attached the severed limb to what remained of hers. 

A ring formed between the two, a black and purple band fused them together, almost like a coupler made of dark energy. She trimmed it down to where one arm was not longer than the other, but she could do nothing about the burned texture and color. It alighted once more, the molten veins radiating heat once again, but this time not igniting. 

The succubus flexed her hand. It reacted slower than she would have liked, but having both arms back was a more than sufficient trade. 

“Fuck yes!” Sara shouted, her triumphant voice carrying over the clearing and into the jungle beyond. She was not sure which was better, having both hands or accomplishing a spell that had taken most of her second life to learn. 

Finishing her notes, the witch offered a tiny clap. This was a huge moment of success, not only for her former familiar, but for herself.

 

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Hey hey!
While I am still struggling to continue to figure out where to go next on Witch's Familiar, I have a new series called Skies of Marvellia you can find here: https://www.scribblehub.com/series/827758/skies-of-marvellia/

If you like all the work I've done here, you'll love the exact same style and story motif I've got over there!