It’s the dead of night, and four witches have met up in a field next to a forest that’s been getting a lot of attention recently. This is the rendezvous point they had agreed on, their faces lit only by the moonlight coming from overhead. It has been several months since Amelia went AWOL, and contact has been lost with every witch and doll that had been sent to investigate. The matriarch had decided to cut her losses, figuring it would be better to train new witches then to keep trying to recover the ones that had gone missing, but recently a small number of witches have begun to travel to the forest without having been ordered to, and have disappeared just like the others had.

 

This has greatly upset the matriarch. Whatever is going on in that forest clearly isn’t just an anomaly that can be quietly ignored. Someone, or something, must be reaching out to her witches, stealing them away from her by guiding them to its domain. She won’t tolerate these sorts of actions being taken against her coven, and she’s put together a team to finally put an end to this farce.

 

“Are we all familiar with the plan?” The witch with unkempt red hair sternly asks the group, before directing her attention towards the witch with short black hair. “Elle?”

 

“Y-Yes!” Elle replies timidly. “My job is to get us as deep into the forest as I can without attracting any attention, so that we don’t have to travel as far to reach the house.”

 

Elle’s specialty is teleportation magic. She can cast a spell that creates a portal between two different points, which makes her a great asset when it comes to securing entry and exit points for an operation like this, not to mention cutting down on travel time in general. She has little experience in the field, let alone on a mission as dangerous as this, but when the head of the coven commands you to go, you don’t have much choice. The matriarch hopes that reducing the amount of time actually spent in the forest will stop them from getting caught by whatever’s been causing trouble there, so Elle is considered an essential and non-negotiable part of the team.

 

“That’s correct. Maya?” The red headed witch turns to the one sporting brown hair.

 

“I will assist Elle by locating a suitable point to create a portal, and then I will guide us in the direction of the target while keeping watch for any hostile entities.” She says matter of factly.

 

Maya possesses the ability to detect things that exist far beyond what one’s senses normally allow, allowing her to scan environments and locate important people and items from great distances. It’s even been theorised she could see beyond this plane of existence, although she’s too busy with her duties to be able to test that hypothesis. She’s the one that the matriarch uses to keep track of her witches, so bringing her out on a mission like this puts the entire coven’s operations at risk if things go wrong, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and she’s being chaperoned by the strongest witch the coven has to offer.

 

“Right, and if we do run into anything, I’ll eliminate it without prejudice, hostile or not.” Says Null, the witch with red hair.

 

Null is a powerful witch who the matriarch took a liking to, despite having only joined the coven a few years ago, and effectively acts as her enforcer, making sure everyone stays in line. She’s carried out all kinds of missions on behalf of the coven, and is fiercely loyal to the matriarch, having never once questioned an order or hesitated when assigned a task that would horrify most witches to no end. 

 

There are rumours that the matriarch has taught her how to use a form of forbidden magic, banned due to its terrifying power, although none have been able to validate this, as she’s only ever gone on solo missions before today, only serving to further emphasise the stakes they’re working with.

 

“And I trust you know your role in this operation?” Null says sharply, turning towards the last witch, sporting long, straight, blonde hair.

 

“Yeah…” Penelope huffs with her arms crossed. “I’m here to keep us hidden from whatever’s in there.”

 

Penelope uses magic that can alter the perception of others, even fellow witches if they aren’t careful, and as such she’s an invaluable asset on any mission requiring stealth. The enemy can’t catch a target that they can’t see, hear, or feel, after all. Null’s never been particularly fond of her though, always taking issue with her attitude when it comes to carrying out her duties. Some of the other witches can’t help but wonder if they had some sort of history, but that wouldn’t make sense considering how recently Null joined them, especially since Penelope has been in the coven for close to a century at this point.

 

“You see that you do. I’d prefer to leave you behind, but I’ve been ordered to bring you on this mission, so you’d better pull your weight.”

 

“I know… Let’s just get this over with.”

 

“Commencing mission now.” Null announces to the group. “Elle. Maya. Start finding a place to put the portal.”

 

Maya closes her eyes as she starts searching the forest, but Elle just stands there timidly.

 

“What are you doing, Elle?” Null asks impatiently.

 

“I’m sorry, it’s just… I know you said you’d take care of anything we find in there, but my friend Felicia is one of the witches that went missing, and I wanted to know if-”

 

“Let me make one thing very clear, witch.” Null says scornfully as she grabs Elle’s cloak. “This is not a rescue mission, our job is to make sure they can’t get any more of us, and nothing more. I don’t care about your friend, so if we run into her and she’s still alive, I’m going to be assuming she’s compromised and working with the enemy, and acting accordingly, do you understand!?”

 

“Y-yes! I’m s-sorry!” Elle yells.

 

“Then get over there and start making the fucking portal!” Null lets go of Elle, who scrambles over to where Maya is standing.

 

“This would be a suitable location for a portal.” Maya says as she puts a hand on Elle’s shoulder, using her magic to guide the other witch. “It’s about a 15 minute walk to the target from that point.”

 

“O-Okay…” Elle says weakly as she raises a hand, reaching out to create the portal. Within a few seconds a hole opens up in front of the group, with a deep section of the forest visible on the other side.

 

“Did you see anything else with your scan, Maya?” Null asks.

 

“Signs of witchcraft, with the house at the epicentre.”

 

“Right, everyone be prepared to face hostile witches then, and stay silent once we’re through the portal. Don’t make any noise unless needed.” Null instructs the group.

 

Elle and Maya nod, and the four of them step through the portal. The forest is much darker than the field was, thanks to all of the trees blocking most of the moonlight, but they can still see well enough to proceed as Maya silently guides them towards their target.

 

The next ten minutes pass by in silence as the team heads in the direction of the house, treading carefully to make themselves as hard to find as possible. Penelope’s magic is more than able to compensate for the sounds of their footsteps, but considering the potential danger they’re wandering into they don’t want to take any chances.

 

It’s clear to everyone there that Elle is extremely nervous, and struggling to hold herself together, but there’s not much that anyone with her could do, or in Null’s case would care to do, to comfort her without increasing their risk of being seen. Null is only growing increasingly frustrated about the fact that she has to work with witches who clearly aren’t cut out for these sorts of missions, but she has to admit that despite her earlier attitude, Penelope has been taking the operation very seriously since they stepped through the portal, and has been focused on following Maya the whole time. Null just hopes that this improvement stays with her after returning to the coven.

 

“What was that?” Maya suddenly breaks the silence with a whisper as she stops in her tracks. Null steps slightly ahead of her, ready to strike at anyone or anything that may have found them.

 

“Who… Who are you?” Maya continues.

 

“What’s going on Maya?” Null whispers. “Do you sense someone nearby?”

 

“So you’re… I see. But that means…” Maya doesn’t respond to Null, she barely seems to register that the witch said anything at all.

 

The others are getting concerned, and Elle is starting to silently panic.

 

“You want me to… what? But if I leave, then…”

 

Null places a hand on her shoulder with a firm grip to try and get her attention. “Maya, what the hell is going on?”

 

“What!?” Maya exclaims, seemingly forgetting about the need to keep quiet.

 

“What are you doing? You’re jeopardising the mission.” Null’s doing her best to stay quiet, but the frustration is getting to her.

 

“Y-You’ll… You’ll protect me? No more having to spy on everyone?” It’s as if Maya doesn’t even realise Null is there, she’s just looking off into space with tears welling in her eyes.

 

Penelope watches her surroundings, unsure of what she should be doing about Maya. Meanwhile, everything that’s happened has proven too much for Elle, who is now sitting against a particularly large tree in the foetal position, quietly whimpering to herself.

 

“Maya!” Null grabs her by both shoulders and starts shaking the witch. “What the fuck are you doing!?”

 

“P-Please!” Maya yells, beginning to sob. “Please save me! Take me away from all of this!”

 

“Who are you-”

 

Before Null can finish her sentence, a familiar portal suddenly appears beneath Maya’s feet, and she falls right in. By the time anyone has had a chance to register what’s happened the portal has already closed. Penelope just looks on in shock, but Null turns towards Elle with fury in her eyes.

 

“Elle.” She says, barely able to contain her anger. “What the FUCK did you just do!?”

 

“W-What?” Elle says weakly, not looking up at the witch accosting her.

 

“Don’t fuck with me! Where did your portal send her!?”

 

“P-Portal…? B-But… this one… d-didn’t make any p-portals…”

 

Null’s eyes go wide in shock, but before she can say anything another portal opens up and Elle falls right in, leaving the two remaining witches on their own. Null stands there staring at the empty space next to the tree for a few seconds.

 

“We’re moving.” She finally states.

 

“What? Where are we even going?” Penelope asks. “Without Maya we’re-”

 

“MOVE!” Null yells before taking off in the direction Maya was previously leading them, and Penelope feels she has no choice but to follow.

 

“Someone just turned Elle into a doll from so far away that we didn’t even know they were doing it.” Nell says as she runs. “A rogue witch capable of that is too much of a threat to the coven to leave alive, and they clearly know we’re here, so we’re taking them out before they can get us.”

 

“Right.” Penelope says from behind.

 

The two continue to run through the forest in the general direction of their target, neither witch feeling the need to say much to the other. Several minutes pass, enough time that at the speed they’re travelling they should have reached the house by this point, and Null stops running.

 

“Penelope.” Null says coldly, looking at the area around them.

 

“What’s going on?”

 

“We’re back where we were when we started running.” She points to the large tree that Elle was sitting against just minutes ago. “You’d better have a fucking explanation for this.”

 

“Ah, right… I was hoping we’d do a few more loops before you realised I was guiding us in a circle.”

 

Null raises an open hand in her direction. “Give me one good reason not to eliminate you right now.”

 

“Because the one you’re looking for, the witch doing all of this, she’s on her way to talk right now, but she’s not going to get close to someone who’d kill without asking questions, is she?” Penelope is sounding awfully confident despite the situation she finds herself in.

 

Null stands there for a second, contemplating.

 

“And you know this, how?”

 

“Because she’s already spoken to me, as soon as we went through the portal, in fact.”

 

“So you’re working with the fucking enemy!?”

 

“I didn’t exactly have a choice!”

 

“What, she’s blackmailing you?!”

 

“No, it’s because she…”

 

Penelope sighs, her voice trembling. She grabs Null’s outstretched hand with both of her own.

 

“She told me she could save you, Nova…”